A Prize For Three Empires
by DarkMark
Summary: Call her Ms. Marvel, Warbird, or Binary, Carol Danvers has had one of the toughest lives of any superheroine...and three star-spanning empires aren't out to make it any easier.
1. Chapter 1

**Ms. Marvel (Warbird):**

**A Prize For Three Empires**

by DarkMark

Part 1

Carol Danvers sat on the edge of the boat dock. Her feet were bare, her white athletic socks stuffed into the Nikes that sat beside her on the dock, and she wore blue jeans and a pink checked shirt and sat there, not fishing, not waiting for a boat loaded with friends of relatives, just sitting and dangling her toes above the water.

Her mother watched her in the August afternoon.

"Honey," she called from the back porch of the lake cabin. "You've been out there over an hour. Don'tcha wanna come back inside and eat or--" Her voice trailed off.

"No, Mom," said Carol, not turning around.

Marie, her mother, stood in blue patterned housedress and apron with her hands on her hips. In her day she had been a beauty to rival even Carol. But that was gone now, and she understood that, and she had married Joe, who owned a construction company, and had birthed Carol a long time ago, and, yes, she understood all that.

What she didn't understand was her daughter.

And perhaps that made two of them, that afternoon.

Marie stepped down the stone steps set into the side of the short slope that led down to the Danvers' boat dock. Her flat-heeled shoes clacked on the steps and she was careful to keep her balance. Carol looked behind her once as she heard Marie's footsteps on the wood of the pier, then turned back around and watched the lake again.

There were a few ducks and a couple of boats and once in a while the occupants of the boats would wave to Carol and she would give a half-hearted wave back.

Mrs. Danvers stood behind her daughter and wiped her hands on her apron. "I've been gettin' dinner ready," she said. "Stir-fry with noodles. Just the way you like it, right."

"Yep, Mom. Just the way I like it."

Marie picked up Carol's shoes in one hand and moved them over so that she could sit beside her. Carol looked at her briefly and went back to looking, scratching at her palm, and dangling her bare feet.

Marie sighed and gripped the edge of the pier with both hands. "So. You wanna tell me the story of your life, or just why you're being Miss Melancholy this afternoon?"

"To you, it's melancholy," Carol said, looking at her hands. "To me, it's a very nice day. Nobody's hollering at me, nobody's trying to beat me up, nobody's asking me to save the world." She paused, and favored her mother with a look. "I like being out here on the dock and not having anything to do. Don't you like sitting on the dock sometimes, Mom?"

"Yeah," said Marie. "Yeah, I used to like it. In between Joe yelling at me, 'Marie! Where's supper?' Or you, yelling, 'Mom! I need to get some new clothes!'" Carol grinned, sheepishly. Marie continued, "In between those times, I used to love sitting out here and looking at the lake."

Carol smiled. "I 'member when you and Dad and I used to come out here and water-ski. You looked like something out of a TV commercial. Me, I think I swallowed so much of the lake I pissed tadpoles."

"Carol!" Marie laughed and playfully whacked her shoulder.

"Well, it's true! Before I learned how to stand up on those things, I splashed down so many times I asked you to get me a pair of underwater skis. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Marie took off her own shoes and set them behind Carol's. "You were so convinced that there had to be skis you could use underwater, 'cause that's where you ended up most of the time. That is, until you got yourself straightened out and _then_ you learned so well you were giving lessons at camp a couple of years. Remember?"

"Yep." Carol leaned back, stretching, closing her eyes. "I do remember camp. I do remember Sara Jackson sticking Ben-Gay in my makeup one day, and I do remember hunting the little bitch and her buddies down and beating the snot out of 'em all at once. We all ended up on report for that, but Sara was the one who got to clean up the mess hall for the next three weeks."

"And, as I recall from that letter you sent home that week, you said that after you got your punishment it was a good thing that you could ski standing up."

Carol snickered.

"Well, wasn't it, Miss Melancholy?"

"Yeah, yeah, Mom, it was." She sighed, smiling. "Dear old Dad despaired of ever making a lady out of me, but I think I turned out all right. Heck, _he_ was the one taught me how to fight."

"And _I_ was the one taught you how to be a lady. I think both of us did a pretty good job, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yup." Carol pulled her legs back up and rested her feet on the pier, her knees against her chest. "Outside of me not knowing how to cook very well, I'd say you guys did a great job."

"Go 'long with you. You do just fine, when you stick to what you know."

"Yeah, but restaurants do finer, so I let them stick to what they know." Carol hugged her legs. "Mom?"

Marie waited.

"I'm glad Dad isn't here today. Sometimes it's easier just with you."

"I know, honey," said Marie.

"Don't get me wrong. Sometimes it's easier with him, too. Like when I came home crying after my first really bad date, and I was yelling about how boys were pig droppings and I never wanted to see anything remotely resembling a boy ever again in my whole life, ever ever ever, and in five minutes he got me turned around again and I was ready to give it another try." Carol lay back against the wood of the pier and looked up at the sky. "And I tried it again and again and again."

"Till you got it right?"

"I got it right a lot of times, Mom," said Carol, still looking up. "A lot of times."

_And I'd just as soon not know the details,_ thought Marie. _Not until one of them comes up here with you, and you both have rings on._

Marie said, "I'm going to have to put the chicken on to fry, honey, if we're going to eat in time. Wanna help?"

"In a minute," Carol said, resting her head with her arms between it and the dock. "Mom?"

"Uh huh?"

"You said you wanted to know the story of my life. Which life do you want to know?"

The story of Carol Susan Jane Danvers made for an interesting enough entry in _Who's Who_ as it was. But there was a lot that wasn't in the public record. A lot that you only knew about if you were a CIA operative, or an Avenger, or an X-Man, or a Starjammer, or the ones who fought those various groups. Because Carol Danvers had been a part of each of those organizations, with a different name for every one. And different sorts of uniforms, to be sure.

Sometimes, even different super-powers.

It had all begun in Boston with her birth over 30 years ago to Joe Danvers, who owned the Danvers Construction Company and built skyscrapers, and Joe's wife Marie, a good hausfrau and mother. Carol wasn't the first nor the last of their brood, and there was money enough to send all the kids to college, just barely.

But Joe Danvers had an ironclad rule for his kids: the boys were going to do their hitch in the military, then go to college, and the girls were damned well going to learn from their mother how to be good wives and mommies and even cheerleaders, if it'd help them hook a man who'd provide for them and keep them straight in life.

And not even Carol, his favorite, could convince him to spend the money on a college education. Her grades were good enough. Her test scores were high enough to have some schools sending her brochures asking them to consider spending four years worth of time and tuition money with them, and even offering some incentives in the way of scholarships.

Joe wouldn't have it. Sure, he'd taught Carol to fight. He'd taught _all_ his kids to fight. That didn't mean she wasn't supposed to be a lady, and a lady's place was in the home, not acting like some harlot on a movie screen or in _Vogue_ or being some spinster career girl. She was going to get married, and that was that. No sense in spending tuition money when she could have her pick of men right there in Boston. But, he said, she could go to secretarial school, or learn to be a nurse. Those were useful things.

So she went and joined the Air Force.

Her father had almost hit the ceiling. When he came down out of a mad hot enough to heat up three buckets of rivets, Carol and Marie had still been standing there, impassive. No matter how many times he told her she wasn't going to do it, she told him, "I've done it, Dad. I just want you and Mom to see me off."

Marie had stood beside her. He'd never raise a hand to her, and Carol, dammit to hell, was getting too big to put over his knee.

So he'd gotten dressed up and gone to see his little girl off and hoped like hell she would find herself a good man in the military, and shook her hand and kissed her cheek. And even Joe had to admit that she did look good in that blue uniform.

She did her stint at the Air Force Academy and learned how to fly fighter planes and how to do combat that even Dad hadn't learned in his Army days.

Before long, Carol was a major.

Joe was showing off her picture in the paper to anybody and everybody at work. He had to admit, she looked even better in that kind of uniform.

Somewhere in there, Carol's C.O. had called her in and proposed a new sort of service to her, one that wouldn't require her to wear an Air Force suit. So, with Uncle Sam's blessings and a handshake from Colonel Nick Fury, Carol Danvers had left the flyboys and become a CIA agent in training. She passed.

Then she started spying.

It was exciting, even terrifying work. She was glad for the chance to do field work with Nick Fury, who'd been a legend as a sergeant in World War II and a lieutenant in Korea, and with a guy known only as Logan, a Canadian of short stature, temper, and vocabulary. At the time, she thought he was a vet of the Big One, too, though it was hard to tell. She ended up partnered with him on several missions during her tour with the Company, during one of which they encountered the mutant op known as Sabretooth and lived to tell about it.

Carol also worked with Col. Michael Rossi, to whom she lost her virginity. But she always thought that it was Logan who really taught her about sex. And taught her, and taught her, and taught her...

On one mission, she'd dropped the ball and ended up in the hands of the KGB. They sent her to Lubyanka to see what she knew, what she didn't, and how long she'd live after they tortured both things out of her. The Company thought it was too risky to go after her, and officially signed off on her. Logan, and several others, had a different opinion.

They busted into Lubyanka and got her out. Carol swore she'd never repay Logan for what he'd done, though she made a good attempt at it with him, for the next few weeks. But, if Logan was a one-woman man, she wasn't quite the woman, and they drifted.

About that time, she found out her brother Steve hadn't been as lucky as she had, just recently.

Steve had joined the Air Force shortly after her, got shipped off to Viet Nam, flew 27 missions, took a hit from a SAM, and died.

What was left was put in a bag and then was put in a box which was shipped back to Boston and then buried in a cemetary there, with Carol and Joe and Marie and Joe, Jr. in attendance and the soldiers firing a 21-gun salute and one of Steve's buddies reading "In Flanders Field" and every last one of them, except perhaps the soldiers firing the guns, crying very, very hard.

Joe told Carol he was glad she was out of the Air Force but wanted her out of what she was doing for whatever government group she was doing it for. His persuasion wouldn't have done much good if she hadn't been thinking along those lines herself, ever since her thing with Logan went cold.

Soon enough she learned about a job opportunity at Cape Canaveral handling security, and drifted out of the Company and right into Project Apollo.

But there were lots of things that the public didn't get to see in those guided tours around the base. One of them, she soon learned, was a gigantic super-robot called the Sentry, which had been placed on Earth ages ago by an alien race called the Kree, and just recently deactivated by the Fantastic Four. It had been sent to NASA for study and safekeeping, and keeping the thing secret from the media and just about everybody else had been one of Carol's first tasks.

Enter Walter Lawson. Or, at least, somebody everyone _thought_ was Walter Lawson.

When she met the man, who was a new brain-boy assigned to study the Sentry, she thought he had the whitest hair of any twentysomething this side of Mike Nomad in the comic strips, and too much secretiveness about his past for her comfort. He didn't seem to like her prying, which made her all the more eager to pry.

A day after Lawson's arrival, something reactivated the Sentry. It started trashing the base.

Then, enter Captain Marvel.

At first, they weren't sure who in the heck the super-type in the white-and-green costume and green mask-helmet was, until he shouted out his name at the Sentry, as if he expected the robot to know him. The robot didn't seem to give much of a damn. But, in a move that even Logan would have been hard-put to equal, Captain Marvel had saved her from the Sentry and used a device on his wrist which he called a Uni-Beam to wreck it.

This began a series of events which lasted for about a year and threw her into contact with Lawson and Captain Marvel over and over again. Cape Canaveral was targeted by aliens, monsters, rampaging androids, even the Sub-Mariner and Iron Man, with Captain Marvel the apparent reason they were there, and Carol just trying to help General Bridges keep the thing from falling apart. Commie spies would have been a welcome relief.

She'd almost become lovers with Lawson, and finally figured out that he was Captain Marvel, who was a Kree, and who was only posing as Lawson, who had been in the pay of enemy powers and was now dead. She had also learned that Marvel's real lover, a Kree woman named Una, had been killed in a conflict stirred up by Marvel's commander, Col. Yon-Rogg, who was not Marvel's biggest supporter.

That was how Carol Danvers started learning that there were spheres of influence beyond that of the military, or the CIA, or SHIELD, or NASA, or the United States, or even Earth itself.

And when she got accidentally injured by a repulsor blast from Iron Man, stumbled out of the hospital, and fell right into the hands of Colonel Yon-Rogg, she learned how deadly those influences could be.

Yon-Rogg was more powerful than an Earthman, almost as mighty as Captain Marvel (whose real name, she found out, was Captain Mar-Vell) himself, and had weapons that were far deadlier than anything Earthmen carried, except maybe for super-scientists like Reed Richards or Dr. Doom. Most of the time, those weapons were trained on her. Yon-Rogg took her to a cave where, generations ago, the Kree had hid a device called the Psyche-Magnitron. It was a mind-over-matter gizmo, and Yon-Rogg was using her as bait to lure Captain Marvel into a deathtrap.

It very nearly worked.

But Captain Marvel, who was now sporting a new, red-yellow-and-blue uniform and who had already given up his Walter Lawson pose, had saved the day, and her, once again, and Yon-Rogg ended up dying in that conflict, thankfully.

The episode had long-lasting effects on Carol, though, which she would not learn until they manifested themselves years later. In some inexplicable way, the radiations of the Psyche-Magnitron had acted upon both her and Mar-Vell, and somehow passed on genetic information from his body to hers.

Though she did not know it, and though her body would have to take years to integrate its changes, she was becoming part Kree.

More than that, she was becoming the sort of Kree Captain Marvel had become, when scientists from a Kree splinter group had subjected him to an empowering process. Men and women of the Kree race gained some super-strength on Earth's lower gravity, but Captain Marvel's strength was hyped even beyond that, and so, in time, would hers be. Captain Marvel could fly, through the power of nega-bands on his wrists. So, too, would Carol fly, with devices at first placed in a strange costume she came to wear, and then integrated into her being. She would also develop a strange "seventh sense" that gave her visions of dangers either to come, or already happening elsewhere.

But all of that was a few years down the road. For the moment, thanks to the flap over not having captured Captain Marvel, or at least not having learned soon enough that Walter Lawson was not what he seemed, her job at the Cape was terminated. She was booted sideways to security detail in a top-secret Air Force base near Gary, Indiana. There she was under the supervision of what she referred to most often as "four-star chauvinists", not nearly as easy to work with as General Bridges and his crew at the Cape.

Shortly after her arrival there, her path crossed that of Captain Marvel again, with another crazy super-villain named Nitro in the package. She hadn't been able to stop the latter, who could blow himself up and reintegrate his atoms, from managing to puncture a canister of deadly nerve gas that was supposed to be in her safekeeping. Captain Marvel managed to reseal the canister, but only after thoroughly exposing himself to the gas.

That would have long-ranging effects, too.

Thanks to that incident, Carol got busted down another rung again and kicked back to the Cape again, this time as a low-level security officer. Even though she liked it better than the Indiana gig, she still didn't like it, knew they didn't like her, and felt that her government days were soon to end. General Bridges wasn't even there anymore.

But a strange parasitic being in the body of Captain Marvel's dead lover Una was, and it beat the hell out of her when she tried--and failed--to stop it from commandeering a rocket launch console. Mar-Vell couldn't save her from the beating, or from subsequently losing her job, but he did save her life. _Some life_, she told herself.

She went back to Boston, rented herself an apartment, and sat down to work on a book about the space program and her role in it and, of course, her encounters with Captain Marvel.

It sold. Through the roof.

Carol Danvers, who had never completed a single hour of college, became a literary celebrity and enjoyed her fifteen minutes of fame. Fourteen and a half minutes into that hectic round of touring, talk shows, and autograph parties, she got a call from J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of New York's _Daily Bugle._

Jameson, he of the ever-present cigar and Hitler mustache, was starting a new magazine called _Woman_. He wanted her as an editor. "The way I see it, a woman's magazine should have articles that are useful," he had explained to her at their interview. "Like new diets, and fashions, and recipes, things like that." He was willing to pay her 20K a year. She settled for 30K, told him her name was _Ms._ Carol Danvers, and added, "And as far as diets and recipes go, forget it."

And so Carol Danvers found herself an editor of a big women's magazine in the Big City. Without ever having gone to college. With only a year's worth of journalistic experience.

There was one other big problem she hadn't counted on.

She had also become a superheroine called Ms. Marvel.

And she didn't know about it.

The exposure to the Kree Psyche-Magnitron had finally manifested its effects in Carol's body. She gained a split personality, and her other half had the consciousness and powers of a Kree warrior, complete with a red, yellow, and deep blue costume patterned after Captain Marvel's, but with a feminine slant. It automatically appeared on her when she switched to Ms. Marvel, triggered by her unconscious. In a way, it was like a fugue state.

It had been happening since six months after she left government work. But she only found out about Ms. Marvel's existence when the heroine encountered and beat the Scorpion, a super-villain, just as Carol began working for _Woman_. And she only found out through a hypnotic session with her psychiatrist, Mike Barnett, who was also her lover, that she herself was Ms. Marvel.

From Air Force major to spy to NASA security staffer to author to superheroine, just like that. The strange thing was, she found out that she was really, really good at it.

She sometimes wondered about that suit and why she'd created it like that. Red shirt like Mar-Vell's, but with a big cutout that exposed her stomach. Black trunks that were really just a bikini bottom, even if they were attached to her shirt. Black gloves, a black mask that covered the upper part of her face, black boots with red tops, and a long red scarf that seemed fashionable but was always being grabbed by whomever she fought, so she did away with it early on. The costume had no leggings, so she showed off most of her legs. Nobody much complained, and it distracted male villains, and Carol admitted she was proud of her body. So what if she was dressed like one of the Rockettes in a mask? She could fight!

A second blast of the Psyche-Magnitron, received during a battle, integrated the costume's flight-power into her own body. Later, Carol's and Ms. Marvel's personalities became integrated, which was helpful, considering she was having to fight menaces such as AIM, Modok, the Doomsday Man, Grotesk, Deathbird, and Tiger Shark on almost a daily basis. She met and worked with other super-heroes, such as Spider-Man, the Vision, Dr. Strange, and the Defenders. But the ones she found herself most closely paired with were the Avengers. She had met the Vision in an early case, and later went to Avengers Mansion to use their lab and encountered the Beast, who was all blue and hairy, and the Scarlet Witch, a lovely mutant with a hex power. Finally, she got a "seventh sense" message concerning the team and their foe Ultron, and jumped right into the fray. That was how she got to meet the Big Names like Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Yellowjacket, Wasp, and Iron Man, plus Wonder Man, who seemed a quite hesitant hero. Ms. Marvel fit in well as an ally, and kept working with the Avengers on many cases beyond that.

She wondered, in later days, if she would have gotten involved with them at all, when she learned what was up the road a little ways. But she had a lot of things to wonder about that time, and the bitterness over that event to come soon became just one part of a very dark, sad, and pitiful mosaic.

During that time, she saved her father from Steeplejack, a crooked builder who was threatening Joe Danvers's life. She also met Captain Marvel again. The first time, they were both partnered against the Kree's Supreme Intelligence, that malevolent composite being who had threatened the Earth time and again. The second time, they were both allied with the Avengers in a long conflict with a being called Michael Korvac.

Neither of them knew that that was the last time they would set eyes on each other.

Carol kept sleeping with Michael Barnett, kept being a super-heroine, kept working with the Avengers, changed her costume to a black bathing-suit affair with high black boots, long black gloves, a mask, and a red waist-sash, and kept trying to edit _Woman_. "Trying" was the operative word there, because editorial duties on a struggling major magazine and the duties of a super-heroine do not mix.

Jameson got tired of the constant battles with her over budget and content, over her constant delegation of authority to others, and of her constant absenteeism. Finally, she came back from a Ms. Marvel adventure, changed into Carol Danvers, and found a pink slip on her desk.

Another great kick in the head.

Luckily, she still had money, and she still had a lover, and she still had a friend, Salia Petrie, who was an astronaut and whom she had saved from an alien who had taken her prisoner aboard a spacecraft. So Carol Danvers picked up what she had in her desk, put it in a box, and went home to figure out her next move.

Her next move was to join the Avengers.

There had been a big shakeup in that team's relationship with the government, who wanted more regulating power over it. As a result, active member count was limited, some members were put on reserve, and a few new ones were recruited. Since Ms. Marvel had done exemplary work on her cases with them thus far, she was asked to become an active Avenger.

She tried not to show it, but she was more than awed.

On a day-to-day basis, she would be associating with Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Vision, and all the rest. They were accepting her as One of Them. On top of that, the base salary for an Avenger was even better than she had gotten at _Woman_.

So Ms. Marvel had become an Avenger, which was her new job, and took up residence primarily in Avengers Mansion, and learned how to live with one of the most famous super-hero groups of all time.

For a long time, it was a lot of fun.

And then, all of a sudden, it wasn't.

_To Be Continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Ms. Marvel (Warbird):**

** A Prize For Three Empires**

_by DarkMark_

Part 2

For Ms. Marvel, her early Avengers tenure was fast, furious, and interesting. Alongside legends like Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Vision, she'd taken on heavy hitters and pulled her weight. The Absorbing Man. The Grey Gargoyle. Taskmaster. The Squadron Sinister. Powerful villains all, and the Avengers had taken them down. And she had been an Avenger.

She also had a fun gig stopping a military man gone bad, in an ad hoc team composed of her old friend Nick Fury, the Thing, and Wonder Man. On that one, all of them had found out just what a poker shark she'd learned how to be in the Air Force. Actually, her daddy had taught her about that somewhat, too.

But, in short order, the fun began to run out, in a big one-two punch.

The first blow was delivered by three mutant women. She had never met any of them. They wanted to kill her.

The mutant trio were members of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Their precog member, Destiny, had a vision that indicated Carol Danvers would somehow harm Rogue, who was the foster daughter of Mystique, the chameleon-powered directress of the Brotherhood. That shook Mystique greatly, for she cared for Rogue quite a bit.

She cared for Rogue enough to kill Ms. Marvel, if the need arose.

As it was, Destiny's predictive power allowed the troika of mutant women to keep tabs on her. Mystique used her morphing ability to become the very image of Carol, and went to the office of her lover / psychiatrist, Dr. Mike Barnett, to lift the file he had compiled on Carol's psyche.

But Mystique's masquerade was not good enough. Barnett didn't know who "Carol" was, but knew that it wasn't Carol. That was a very, very unfortunate thing.

Because Mystique turned on him and beat him to death.

Then she went ahead and took the files on Carol, and left the remains of Michael Barnett for Carol and the cops to find, and soon learned from what she had taken that Carol Danvers was really Ms. Marvel.

This ratcheted things up another turn.

Mystique had the Brotherhood attack Ms. Marvel. They were beaten back, but escaped. For her part, Carol had to cope with another part of her life going to ashes, and cried hard tears for Mike Barnett. When she learned, soon after, that Mystique had been his killer, she cursed the fact that she had not known of this when she fought the Brotherhood.

Now Ms. Marvel and Mystique were bound by mirrored vengeance.

Carol had lost two jobs, her brother, and her lover. It was hard to put the mask and bathing suit costume on, now. It was hard to play soldier.

She cried over some long phonecalls at night to her mother and made arrangements to ask for time off at the end of the week. She was sure nothing could knock her lower than this had done, certain that, after this, God or whoever had something better in store for her.

In this, Carol was very, very wrong.

Before she even got around to asking Iron Man for some leave, or seeing if the Avengers could help her track down the Brotherhood, or just going after them herself, she had to help out on the battle with Taskmaster, and did. She aquitted herself well.

Then another of the very strange things which had a habit of happening to Carol Danvers happened to her again. On the way back from the Taskmaster battle, in the Avengers Quinjet, Ms. Marvel looked up and found that she wasn't in the craft anymore and her costumed friends were not beside her.

Instead, she was seeing the interior of a strange castle, whose walls and aspects seemed to somehow be in flux. There was a man before her, a rather handsome man, with jet-black hair, a mustache, and a beard. He looked about 25 years of age and was standing there before her, in a green jumpsuit, appearing to give her the once-over with his eyes.

She punched him.

He skidded across the wavering floor and she was about to follow up with another blow. He raised one hand and said, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Carol," and unleashed energy from his hand which she could only perceive with her Kree senses.

She stopped stock-still. Then, since she was posed in an awkward position, she fell on her side. She couldn't even move her eyes.

The man in the green jumpsuit picked Ms. Marvel up, lay her on a couch, and proceeded to mess with her mind.

He discovered her memory of Mike Barnett's murder and, to pacify her, set about nulling and suppressing that, though the rest of her consciousness screamed out against him in horror. But...it was like being under ether, somehow...and, after awhile...

...she wondered just what she had been mad about, before...

...then she even forgot to be mad.

"Nice, nice," he said, to himself more than to her. "So very, very nice."

The psionic lobotomy went on.

His name was Marcus Immortus and he was the son of the Lord of Limbo, who had fought the Avengers once and then aided them at other times. His mother had been an Earthwoman, whom the elder Immortus had loved for a time, before she vanished back into the Earth-plane. Then Immortus himself faded away. And Marcus was left alone.

He didn't like that.

He wanted to go to Earth.

But, thanks to the nature of his birth and the forces about him, he couldn't do that.

So Marcus hit upon the idea of encoding his mind and soul magically into what he called his "essence", which was in an area where most men have their essence. The difference was that Marcus's "essence" would have his consciousness, when he was born. He would be born with the memory and mental components of the earlier Marcus, though the earlier Marcus, as a result of this, would wither and die in a short time.

You always left some things behind after every stage, though.

The trick was to find some woman on Earth who could be induced...well, seduced, really, with the help of some psychosurgery...who would oblige him by taking on his "essence" and bringing him to term and birthing him.

There _had_ to be such a woman on Earth. There were billions of women. Certainly he could find one who would be suitable. And he'd show her a good time, oh, yes, he would. He'd _make_ her have a good time. It was all so, so important. And after he was born on Earth, why, he'd mature in a few days and then permanently fix his age at maturity and use his father's science to make a Golden Age on Earth.

Even if the woman didn't understand it at first, after it was all over, she'd be unutterably grateful to him for it all.

He was certain of that.

Since his father had been involved with the Avengers, he sought out the team on a time-scan and came upon them when there were several of them heading back in a Quinjet from some battle. There were a few women on board.

But one was a robot, and that made her no good at all to him.

Another was a woman called the Wasp, and his father had told him that she was married to an Avenger named Yellowjacket at that time, and he didn't think she ever had any children. Marcus didn't want her for those two reasons. It just wouldn't be nice to take a married woman away from her husband. Anyway, she probably couldn't help him.

But the third woman was a very pretty blonde woman in a black bathing suit costume that showed off a spectacular figure, and Marcus noted she had very pretty golden hair and could tell, even through the mask, that she had a very, very lovely face. Her name, at this time, was Ms. Marvel.

He was sure, in time, he could persuade her to call herself Mrs. Marvel. Or maybe just Mrs. Immortus. That would be nice.

So he plucked her from her time-stream and brought her to Limbo and, after that rather messy getting-acquainted-over-a-punch period, implanted things in her mind. Things to make her love Marcus Immortus.

Part of Carol Danvers's mind was screaming.

But a larger part of it was...kind of dreaming...thinking that this might just be a very, very nice dream...and what was she supposed to be mad at, anyway?

This nice young man in the green jumpsuit? She never knew just how sexy that a man in a green jumpsuit and a beard and a mustache could be. This, she thought, was strange, because she wouldn't have given this man too much thought before she had been brought here.

But perhaps this was just a dream, and perhaps it was an erotic dream.

She wasn't sure she wanted to get erotic right then. After all, even in a dream, she wasn't quite _that_ kind of girl.

(_He is violating me he is raping my emotions he is doing operations on my mind he is taking my rightful thinking away from me so that he can..._

(_He is..._)

He was having a man he had taken from another century, a man in Elizabethian dress, write her a love-sonnet, and there was a strange look in the man's eyes, as if he really didn't know where he was, either. Then he was gone.

He was having a German fellow who didn't seem able to hear sit at a strange sort of desk with quill pen and paper and write a musical suite for her, which was then performed by an orchestra she couldn't see at all.

He was having a Frenchwoman design a ball gown for her, which was then magicked into existence, and at first she didn't like it at all, but then Marcus looked into her eyes and, a few seconds later, she couldn't wait to put it on.

Then the Englishman and the German and the Frenchwoman were gone, and they were dancing, dancing to the music that the deaf man had written for them. For her.

(_The Avengers will find us oh God the Avengers will rescue me what's the matter with me why can't I break free oh God break me free_)

And after awhile she let the man take her somewhere to a very palatial bed and implant his "essence" in her.

(_OH GOD HE'S RAPING ME_)

And Marcus thought that was very, very nice. Very, very nice, indeed.

Then he'd gotten her dressed in her Ms. Marvel costume and told her he had to send her back home again, which made her feel very sad. But he said that she shouldn't cry, because her memory of this place, and of him, would be lost as soon as she went back home. Anyway, she was going to have him as a baby very soon, and they would be together.

"That's nice," said Ms. Marvel.

(_His baby oh God I'm GOING TO HAVE HIS_)

"That's very, very nice," said Marcus Immortus.

(_baby_)

Then Ms. Marvel had found herself on the Avengers Quinjet again.

For a second, she shivered, but couldn't discern any cause for it.

After all, there she was with good old Hank and Jan and Iron Man and Cap and all the rest sitting with her in the Quinjet, and they'd all just busted up Taskmaster's thug-training racket. She thought about asking Iron Man for a few days off.

But she couldn't figure out just why.

So she decided it must not have been very important anyway, and wondered what Jarvis would fix them for dinner that night.

A day or two after that, she was talking to the Scarlet Witch, telling Wanda she needn't worry about not having children, being an Avenger and being married to the Vision was bound to be enough. Then she took sick, right on the beach where they talked.

Wanda took her to the doctor and they found out she was three months pregnant.

Pregnant.

She'd been on the Pill when she was with Michael. He'd used protection.

Pregnant.

He was dead now, damn it. And she felt as though she should feel something more about it, but, somehow, she just didn't.

Pregnant. Three months.

She added it all up and then just screamed.

When she'd gotten her stuff together as much as she could, she unmasked before Wanda for the first time and told her that her real name was Carol Danvers. Wanda had been a dear then, and helped her keep it together, and took her back to Avengers Mansion, where, a day later, the guys had come back in and learned that Carol was not only pregnant, but now in approximately her seventh month. In less than four days.

The idiots thought it was great.

The Wasp, who, either through her fault, or Hank Pym's, or both, or nobody's, had never produced a child, was all smiles and support. The Beast had jokingly offered himself as a teddy bear when the baby was delivered, and ran out to buy a bunch of sporting equipment for it. Wonder Man had offered his congratulations.

What could she say?

She said, "Thank you all," finally, and let Dr. Don Blake, the Avengers' physician, escort her to her quarters.

It was impossible.

But her belly was distended, and she felt the infant kick, and she knew that within the next 24 hours her water would break and she would have a child.

At least she hoped it would be a child.

Part of her was numb and part of her wanted to grab a ball bat and chase the Avengers (except Wanda) around the mansion for grinning at her and saying what a really great thing it was that she was having a baby.

But she let Dr. Blake put her to bed and then, a few hours later, her water broke and she called Dr. Blake on the intercom and Dr. Blake and Jocasta, the lady robot, had come with a wheelchair and taken her to the emergency room within the mansion and put her on the table with her feet in some stirrups (the Avengers seemed prepared for anything, even pregnancy) and helped her deliver the child.

It looked like a normal, healthy child, and Dr. Blake had spanked its behind once and it--he--had breathed, normally and regularly, but not cried. Dr. Blake thought that was odd, but what the hell hadn't been, lately, and anyway, the kid was still breathing.

Wonder Man had wheeled Carol out of the delivery room afterward, and Jan, the Wasp, had rushed up to congratulate her. Carol had set her straight: "I've been used. That isn't my baby. I don't even know who the father is. So if you want to help me, please, just leave me alone."

Jan had looked astonished, but she nodded, after a moment, and Wonder Man had taken Carol back to her room.

Within hours, the child had grown hair, put on weight, God only knew from where, and started speaking. They fed him and fed him, and he didn't seem to eliminate much. He just grew and grew and grew.

Within hours, Carol herself was recovered from delivery, and her belly had shrunk back to its normal pre-pregnancy state without even a trace of stretch marks. She put on her Ms. Marvel costume. She wondered why.

Within hours, Manhattan was plagued by dinosaurs, knights, German World War I flying aces in Fokkers, Native American tribes from a century ago on the warpath, and strange airships from future eras.

The child grew to the form of a 25-year-old man with black hair and a mustache and beard. When Carol saw him as such, she felt strange stirrings in her body, a strange attraction, and was ashamed of herself for being attracted to her son, who called himself Marcus and said, "Hello, Mother," to her.

And somewhere in the recesses of her mind was a desperate woman screaming, running through a hall and banging on its doors, hollering for someone to hear her, to help her, to set her free.

But nobody really heard her.

Not even Carol.

While the other Avengers were out taking care of the dinosaurs and such, Ms. Marvel clung to her son as if he were her lover. Why was she doing this? She didn't really know, not at all. But she clung so closely to him that eventually Marcus, who was building a great machine in Avengers Mansion, had reached out a hand to her and touched her forehead and made her go to sleep.

That seemed very, very nice.

When she woke up, awhile later, the machine had been destroyed. Marcus was facing off against the other Avengers, and telling them he would kill them. She got up and told him, firmly, "No, Marcus, you'll kill no one." And he didn't.

Then she learned, and they all learned, that he was the son of Immortus. Carol was dumbfounded. She told him that she had never even met Immortus. Marcus told her that was true.

Then Marcus Immortus told them part of the story. Only the parts that wouldn't make the Avengers too mad.

When it was all done, they understood that they had smashed the machine that would allow Marcus to halt the fluctuations in the time-stream, and to halt his accelerated growth, and to do nice things to make a Golden Age for humanity. Now he would go back to Limbo himself, where he might survive, and live alone for the rest of his life.

And Carol had said, "No, Marcus, you won't be alone."

Because she still felt the feeling he had implanted in her and that feeling was seeing him more as a lover even if he was, in a way, her son.

Because part of her didn't want to remain with the Avengers.

(_BECAUSE HE'S STILL CONTROLLING ME OH GOD WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT_)

Because she thought that going to live with him in Limbo might be very, very nice.

So Thor had whirled his hammer and pierced the dimensions for them and taken the two of them to live in Limbo. And that was where Carol had lived for a while.

The thing was, Marcus Immortus didn't live long at all.

His body didn't stop aging, even in Limbo. He couldn't stop it. Within hours, he was too senile to even think about stopping it.

At first, Ms. Marvel just thought it was rather odd. But she loved him.

Then, as she saw him die, she wasn't even sure she liked him very much.

Then, as his flesh decayed away and his skeleton was left and even that turned to dust in minutes, she realized that she hated him.

The desperate lady crashed through the last door in Carol's mind and wanted to give forth a scream, a scream of all screams, the biggest scream she had ever screamed in her life. So Carol helped her.

She didn't know how long she screamed.

It's hard to tell about such things, in Limbo.

But after she finished, she was still afraid. Very, very afraid. Because there was nobody in Limbo, or at least that part of Limbo, but her. The walls of Marcus's palace were in flux and she saw bits and pieces of other times through the windows outside and wanted to throw up. So she did, carefully, right on Marcus's ashes. She found something to sweep up all the mess with and gathered it all in a sheet from the bed where she had received Marcus's "essence" and tied up the sheet and dumped it out a window. She didn't know where or when it dropped, but it wasn't there anymore.

By then Carol remembered everything, including what Marcus had done to her and what Mystique had done to Michael. She was angered, she was anguished, she was more than a little terrified, and she was alone.

She threw back her head, her eyes shut tight, and hollered, "DAMN YOU, IMMORTUS!"

Somebody answered back.

"Why damn me?" said a man. "What have I done / will I do to you?"

She opened her eyes and there, standing before her, was a man in a green and purple uniform with a big purple helmet of some sort on his head. He was an older man, but his face looked familiar.

It was like Marcus's, only aged quite a bit.

Carol launched herself forward, found nothing where the man had been an instant before, and crashed into the fluctuating wall of Marcus's palace. She was hurt a bit, and whipped her head around and saw the man standing on the opposite side of the room. Carol gathered her legs under herself in preparation for another leap.

He held up his hand. "I can teleport away from you many more times than you can leap at me," he said. "And you will probably hurt yourself doing so. Let us talk. This is my son's house. Has he done something to you?"

Carol stood, quivering with effort, and fixed the man with the most baleful stare he had seen in eons.

"Your son raped me," she said. "And he raped my mind."

Immortus looked quite concerned. Then he materialized two chairs, facing each other, and sat down in one. He gestured to her. "Come. Sit, and tell me."

"If you try anything with my mind, I'll kill you," she said, and sat.

When she had finished her tale, Carol was gratified to learn that he seemed chagrined, just a bit. "This is not a thing I would have done," he said, though he did not delineate what he would have done, specifically.

She waited for him to speak again.

"I cannot undo what he has done. Do you wish to return home?"

"I insist on returning home," she said, quietly, staring at him.

"Do you wish your memories of this incident cleansed?"

"Not a bit," Carol snarled. "I want to remember this. I want to remember everything."

Which was quite ironic, in view of what came afterward. But if Immortus knew about that, he did not tell her.

"I will send you back to your plane," said Immortus. "But one oath I require of you: that you not tell the Avengers, or any other, of my involvement. It does not please me for them to learn of my continued existence at the time to which I will send you."

"I won't tell them about you," said Carol. "I'll say I got myself back, somehow. But, at any rate, you don't have to worry. I don't want to see the Avengers again."

To that, Immortus said nothing. So perhaps he did know something of what would happen to Carol when she went back to Earth.

Instead, he simply said, "Very well. Goodbye."

And Carol Danvers disappeared from Limbo, never to return.

She found herself back in her old apartment, some three months after the time of her leaving. None of her furniture was there, none of her belongings. Thankfully, no one was in at the time to whom Ms. Marvel would have had to explain her existence.

Carol went to a window, raised it, went out, closed it behind her, and flew to Boston. Her mother knew of her Ms. Marvel identity, even if her father didn't. So she approached Marie Danvers when Joe wasn't at home, and Marie had dropped the pan in which she had been making lunch, and both of them had hugged and cried on each other's shoulder for awhile.

Before Joe came back from work, Carol had changed into a dress that Marie provided, and found that her dad was also mighty glad to see her, so she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and he hugged her back in his brawny construction-man's arms.

"Where've you been?" said Joe. "You weren't at home. We had to get your stuff. It's in storage. We couldn't even get a straight answer out of the number you gave us to call. Hell, we were about to get a lawyer and a private eye and start suing and searching."

"It's been awhile, Dad," said Carol. "I got a case of partial amnesia." She wasn't lying, and Joe knew it, but also knew that there was more than what she proceeded to tell him. Yes, she had been writing since losing her job at _Woman_. Finally, after some more evasion, Joe said, quietly, "Carol, it isn't a guy, is it?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah. But he's gone now."

"And is there some more stuff that's, you know--" Joe's voice left it hanging.

Carol said, "There's a lot of stuff that has to remain secret, Dad."

Joe looked at her and thought of the CIA, and neither Carol nor Marie would have dissuaded him from that belief. Heck, the Company probably asked her to do something else for them, thought Joe, and she ran into something pretty tough doing it.

Joe said, "You're not involved with that stuff anymore, are you?"

Smiling, Carol had said, "No, Dad. Never again."

And she thought that, after all this hell, she was due a little heaven at last.

In her statement, and in her thought, she was, of course, wrong.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Ms. Marvel / Warbird:**

** A Prize For Three Empires**

_by DarkMark_

Part 3

So after the week she spent in Boston with her parents, getting back in touch with that which was Real, and after transferring the money in her savings account to travellers' checks (without touching the account the Avengers had set up to pay Ms. Marvel if and when she returned...that would tip her hand), Carol Danvers said goodbye to Joe and Marie and boarded a plane under an assumed name. She wanted to get as far away from the East Coast and New York and all its myriad superheroes as she possibly could.

She went to San Francisco.

There Carol rented an apartment on one of those very hilly streets, for which Aerobics must have certainly been invented, plugged in her computer, and got to work. She had enough money to live on, but she still had books she wanted to write. One of them, _Airborne Agents_, drew on her CIA and NASA experience and covered spying in the air and by satellite from World War II to the present. She even did a phone interview with Gary Powers, the shot-down U2 spy of the Fifties. She kept her name out of the public view and paid her rent in cash.

When it was published, she knew that she would inevitably get a call from the Avengers. Grimly, she readied herself for that encounter, and what she would say to them. She didn't intend to say it more than once.

But other people had other plans for her.

Three months after Carol's return to Earth, long before the completion and publication of her book, and some weeks after she had made a few brief functions as Ms. Marvel to break up some petty crimes, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants intruded into her life again, in the person of Rogue.

Destiny, the precognitive mutant, had sensed Carol's return, but warned Mystique against harming her. Mystique, thinking Rogue could not hear her, exclaimed that she would in no way allow Carol Danvers to harm her stepdaughter Rogue, as Destiny had earlier foreseen.

Rogue heard her.

She took matters into her own hands. She had been gifted (or cursed) with the ability to steal abilities, powers, even memories from anyone with whom she made flesh-to-flesh contact. A short contact meant that the powers only stayed with Rogue for a short time, then returned to the originator. A longer contact could make the transfer permanent.

Thus, she was more than a match for Ms. Marvel.

Rogue made her way to San Francisco, found Carol, and fought her. The heroine was taken by surprise, but gave a good account of herself. So good, that Rogue's contact with her was much longer than she'd planned. During the battle, Rogue not only stole Carol's Ms. Marvel powers, she permanently transferred them to herself. She also took Carol's memories in the process, apparently mindwiping her.

Carol Danvers was unconscious when Rogue threw her off the Golden Gate Bridge.

But San Francisco had been home to the odd super-hero since Daredevil and the Black Widow moved their some years earlier. Spider-Woman was on patrol and saw the incident. She was able to save Carol's life, though it entailed a mile swim through the chilly bay waters. Rogue was long gone by the time the two heroines made land.

The cops ran an i.d. check on Carol, who was now, mentally, an infant. They learned her identity and told Spider-Woman. Spider-Woman called Professor Charles Xavier at his Westchester, New York mansion. Xavier said he'd be over on the next flight, and was as good as his word.

With some help from Spider-Woman, Xavier used his mutant mental powers to probe deep within Carol's subconscious and dredge up what remained of her memories. He restored them to her conscious mind, bringing her back to adulthood. A few memories remained blocked for a long time. And Xavier was unable to make the connection, quite, between many of her memories and her emotions.

For a long time, until her mind healed itself, Carol looked upon her past as she would look upon a movie.

Perhaps that was a blessing.

But she still remembered what Immortus had done to her, and about the Avengers.

Xavier learned of her past as a superheroine, security chief, and CIA agent from his probe. He also learned that she had worked with Logan, now Wolverine, part of his X-Men team. Thus, he offered Carol the chance to return to New York with him to continue her rehabilitation and to have her act as a support operative for the team.

Carol looked mentally at what she had come through, and wondered if there was anyplace on Earth she could go where she would be free of super-heroes.

Apparently not, she decided.

She also thought that the X-Men, who functioned as a sort of extended family--possibly disfunctional?--might be easier to get along with than the Avengers. But it would put her back in the Avengers' old stomping grounds.

Still...

She had to confront them sometime. And she could finish her book as easily in New York as she could in San Francisco.

So she took a deep breath and told Xavier, "I'll do it."

She went back with him the very next day, after making contact with her parents on the phone and assuring them, as best she could, that she was getting better after her incident. They had been intending to come down there, but since she was coming back to the East Coast, she convinced them that would be counterproductive and that she'd see them soon.

_My life_, she thought to herself, putting down the phone. _Even I can't really believe it._

Spider-Woman had already gone back to New York in the X-Men's Blackbird jet to further investigate the case and fell in with the Avengers. The latter were having a big battle with the Brotherhood, including Rogue, and Spider-Woman helped them triumph, though the villains escaped (except for the Blob, whom they tried and failed to spring from prison). From the heroes, she learned about Ms. Marvel, Marcus Immortus, and the way in which Carol had left the team.

Storm soon headed back to California and picked up Xavier and Carol, who was about to become a part of another team.

When she got to the big mansion in Salem Center which had been the X-Men's home for so many years, and Xavier's home for almost all his life, the one who opened the car door for her wore a brown and orange costume and was on the short side and looked somewhat familiar.

"Lookin' good, Danvers," he said. "Hand me your bags 'n' tell me what you been doin' since you left the Company."

Her brain processed the memory of his voice and put it together with other clues, and she knew the deduction took her longer than it should have.

"Logan," she said to him. "You're Logan." Then she said, wonderingly, "We made love together."

Wolverine looked on her, a little sadly, it seemed. He shifted his eyes to Jessica, who was Spider-Woman, and to Xavier. Then he looked back at Carol, held out his hand to help her out, and said one thing.

"Glad you remembered."

The other X-Men, Jessica Drew, who was Spider-Woman, and a blonde girl whom she learned was Ilyana Rasputin were sitting around in the front room in civvies. Wolverine preceded them, carrying her three suitcases with ease, and stopped long enough to say, "Blondie here is an old friend of mine, Major Carol Danvers. Treat 'er right, okay?"

A brown-haired young man was the first up, and he shook her hand as warmly as she'd had it shaken in a long time. "Hello, Carol," he said. "I'm Scott Summers. The Professor tells me you're going to be staying with us for a little while."

"Yes," she said, as firmly as she could. Then she looked around the large room at the others. A big Slavic type in a sweatshirt and jeans, who seemed like a good but shy farmboy. A beautiful black woman with white hair, in casual dress and golden sandals. A fourteen-year-old brown-haired girl, and her thirteen-year-old blonde friend. "Yes, I am. I'm going to be doing some therapy, and, oh, helping out as much as I possibly can..."

For all her world-weariness, Carol was shy at that moment. She was also afraid to commit any emotion to them just then. What if they were just like the Avengers? What if they'd do exactly the wrong thing when she needed them most to do the right? What if she couldn't break the ice here, or get her memories and feelings connected, or...

She heard a small sound like a very small blown-up paper bag being popped, and smelled a bit of sulphur.

Carol wondered, for a second, if someone had passed gas.

But at her side was a deeply-blue-furred demon in a red and yellow outfit, complete with a long tail. He had the friendliest grin she'd seen this side of a five-year-old kid. He also held a handful of fresh-picked daisies in his hand, which he extended to her.

"_Guten tag_, Miss Carol," said Nightcrawler. "You like posies? I hope you do. I also hope you're a good outfielder, 'cause we've got a killer softball team."

Carol was glad she had just the reaction she did at that moment.

She broke up laughing and grabbed the daisies. "Thanks. Uh, when you do that popping thing, does it always smell like--"

"Like he just cut one!" hollered Kitty. "Yep!"

Thirty seconds worth of roaring laughter from all concerned later, Carol hugged the hell out of Kurt Wagner and was introed to the others, making small talk, shaking hands, and even collecting a couple of hugs.

Jessica Drew said to Scott, "Looks like you've got a new team member, Cyke."

"I don't know about that," he said, cautiously. "But I do think we've got a new friend."

Joe and Marie Danvers were down the next day. The group shut off the sections of the mansion which held all the off-limits stuff and admitted them. Kurt had used a thing called the Image Inducer to make himself look like a normal guy. Xavier, Scott, and Ororo met the Danverses at the front gate and escorted them in to see Carol.

She was wearing a blue dress and, when she saw them, smiled and took a few seconds to call up some memories of the times she'd had with them. It took some effort. They waited, giving her some time.

"Hello, Mom, Dad," she said at last.

They both embraced her and Xavier and company left them alone.

After some explanations were made, Carol told them she'd been attacked by an enemy agent on the bridge and had been thrown into the bay. The shock of the incident and of having to swim a mile through frigid waters had left her with partial amnesia and a bit of emotional difficulty. Professor Xavier was doing hypnotherapy with her and she was coming along just fine. She was also working with the group there.

"Like doing what?" asked Joe, as gently as possible.

"Can't say, Dad," said Carol. "You know how it is."

Marie, who didn't know everything that had happened but suspected super-villains had been involved, said, "You know, Joe. It must be--"

"It must be the Company. And this is a Company business, isn't it?"

Carol didn't say anything.

"Carol, listen to me," Joe said. "I want you out of here. I want you out of the Company. You've almost been killed several times. They damn near got you this last time and look at you. I mean, _look _at you."

Carol shook her head. "Why, Dad? Don't I look all right?"

"You look fine, dear," said Marie. "It's just..."

"It's just that some enemy agent tried to kill you and it screwed with your brain," snapped Joe. "Now, listen to me, Carol. I don't know who that bald-headed guy out there is, but if he's Company, you could be in big trouble. They could be using, I don't know, drugs on you like in that MK-ULTRA thing."

"Dad, dad, this is not _The Manchurian Candidate_, and Mr. Xavier isn't with the Company," Carol said, trying to smile. "I haven't been with the Company in a long time. It's just that...well...some enemy agents have long memories."

"And what about your memory?" said Joe, holding her. "What about the memories they took from you, dammit?"

"I'm getting them back, Dad," she said. "If it hadn't been for Professor Xavier, I'd practically be in a fetal state."

"A fetal state?" gasped Marie. "Carol, Carol, my God, what happened to you?"

"Something that might have really been bad, if Professor Xavier hadn't happened to me a little later," said Carol. "I can't stop therapy right now. I'm not leaving, Mom. And I hope you understand, Dad."

"Understand?" Joe was fighting back anger. "For chri--what's to understand? One of those guys out there talks like a Russian. Another one sounded like a refugee from _Hogan's Heroes_. And I don't know where that black woman's from, but I sure bet it ain't Harlem! If this isn't the CIA, then what is it?"

"Joe, please," said Marie.

"Is this Synanon? Is this a cult, for God's sake?"

Carol said, patiently, "This is New York. A lot of immigrants come here. And if you really want to get ethnic, there's a Jewish-American princess, too, and a Canuck, and a few damn Yankees like me. And like the Professor. No, it isn't a cult. Professor Xavier is helping me. I like it here. So whether you like it or not, Dad...I'm staying. And that is it."

She fixed him with a solid stare.

After awhile he said, "Well, you're damn well as stubborn as you always were. He must be getting _some_ of your memories back."

Carol had gone out to dinner with her folks after that. They spent the night in the mansion, then caught a flight back home. For awhile, Joe considered hiring a deprogrammer to break her out of there. But, as time passed, he realized that she seemed to be getting better. So he crossed his fingers and decided to let fate ride. He suspected that Marie knew a hell of a lot more about Carol than he did, and that he was going to have to find out about it sometime soon.

And Marie just wondered how many times Carol could dance with Death before dying.

The Avengers found out about Carol's presence at the X-Mansion soon enough, and put through a call asking to talk to her and then see her. Ororo told them that Carol wasn't well enough to take calls yet, but thanked them, and told them when she felt like having visitors, she'd let them know.

After Ororo told her about the call, she talked with Xavier about it in her next therapy session. "You can't avoid them for long, you know," he said. "Part of recovering is facing the factor that hurt you before, and dealing with it."

Carol, in slacks and a shirt, sighed. "I know, Charles. I'm not afraid of them. I'm afraid of what I'm going to say to them. I'd like to tear into them like a house afire for what was done to me. But at the same time, I know--or I think I know--that they weren't trying to hurt me. They were just being damned ignorant."

"And?" said Charles.

"And I still like most of them, in a way," she said. "God, even though it's hard to connect all the feelings with the memories...it's kind of like trying to play connect-the-dots while you're holding a pencil in boxing gloves...I think there aren't too many bad vibes before...that."

"So you're conflicted," said Charles. "Part of you still wants them for friends, but part of you wants to settle this thing with them. And?"

Carol laced her fingers together and dropped her hands in her lap. "And. You want me to say that I've got to face them to do that."

After a pause, Xavier said, "Jessica has to go back within the week, Carol."

She said, "Call them and tell them they can come over. Tomorrow."

They said they could make it in three days, and Ororo told them that would be all right.

So, in four days, the Avengers Quinjet touched down on the grounds of the mansion, with the X-Men, Jessica, and Carol sitting around the pool.

Carol stood there in a one-piece violet bathing suit and watched the craft land, and, if her hand trembled, she held it against her thigh so that no one could tell one way or the other.

Ororo, gorgeous in a scanty white bikini and wearing a flower in her hair, was beside her. "We will stay if you wish, Carol," she said, quietly.

"Thanks, Ororo," said Carol. "But--no."

Jessica, in a black bathing suit with a purple lightning slash, padded up to her barefoot and grasped her hand. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"

Carol grasped Jessica's hand firmly in friendship, but she did not look at her. "I'm not sure of anything, Jess. Except that this is something I feel I have to do."

Jessica told her she understood, and that if she needed a friend, to call and she would hear and come to her. Then, squeezing Carol's hand one last time, she let go and retreated with the others into the mansion.

The door of the Quinjet popped open and the stairway dropped down. Emerging from it were seven familiar figures. Iron Man, Captain America, Wonder Man, Hawkeye, the Beast, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, and Thor.

"Hey, guys," called the Beast to the X-Men, who were almost all through the door by that time. "What's the matter? No kind words for the old alum here?"

Scott looked back once, and all he said was, "Later, Hank." Then he stepped through the door and closed it.

The mutants and Spider-Woman stood inside and waited.

The seven heroes had expected a warmer reception than this.

They stood before the beautiful blonde woman in the bathing suit and took note of her tired stare and wondered what the hell had happened to her in Limbo, and what had happened to her in the battle with Rogue, and what they should say to her, and who would say it first.

So Hank McCoy, the Beast, said, "Hi, Carol. How are you doing?"

She looked at him and took a deep breath.

"Better than expected, Hank," she said. "I'll never regain all my memories, but Professor Xavier has helped me remember who I am, who and what I was. I remember my family--I've met with my parents, now. I remember the Avengers--and how I came to leave them. Bits and pieces, mostly. I've a ways to go yet.

"But I'm forgetting my manners. Please sit down. Would anyone like some iced tea? I'm afraid Wolverine took all the beer with him."

The Avengers seemed a bit more at ease, then. After all, Ororo had told them that Carol was having trouble connecting with her emotional memories.

"You're lookin' real good, Carol," said Hawkeye, who had given her the up-and-down with his eyes. "What happened to Marcus? After you left with him, we didn't expect to see you two lovebirds again."

She turned her back to them, pouring some tea from the pitcher. "I'm sure you didn't, Hawkeye. Marcus is dead."

"What?" asked Captain America.

Iron Man offered, "We're very sorry, Carol. You two made a wonderful couple. We hoped you'd be happy together." He paused. "Is there anything we can do to help ease your pain?"

Her hand trembled. Then she lost control of it, and the plastic glasses full of ice and the big cooler jug with the iced tea in it all went off the metal tabletop and onto the concrete surrounding the pool and spilled brown liquid all over it.

She cried out, "Didn't you do enough to cause it?"

_Oh, hell_, thought the Beast. He and Thor were closest to her, and they went to her side. "Carol, what's wrong?" asked Hank, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"I'm sorry, Hank," Carol gasped, one hand covering her face.

Thor laid a surprisingly gentle hand on her bare shoulder, his palm callused from the use of his hammer. "Be not ashamed of thy womanly tears,Carol," he said. "Thou hast lost the one thou didst love."

"NO!" she shouted, and whirled and slapped the god of thunder on his cheek. He gaped, uncomprehending.

She turned to face them, and didn't even try to stop the tears from running down her face.

"I didn't love Marcus. I never loved Marcus. Don't any of you realize what happened, months ago? What Marcus did to me?"

Wonder Man shifted on his booted feet. "Guys, maybe our visit was a mistake," he said, uneasily.

Hawkeye cut in, raising his palm. "Hold it. I was there, lady. You told us you cared for Marcus. You left with him of your own free will."

How could these beings, some of them literally having the powers of gods, be so infernally dumb?

"I left because I had no choice," she said.

And she told the Avengers what had really happened to her, leaving out only the elder Immortus's part in bringing her back to Earth.

About that incident, she was having less and less problems connecting it to what she felt.

"I never wanted to see you--any of you--again," said Carol. "I hated you. Because when I needed you most, you betrayed me."

She told them of what she had felt when they made their jokes. She told them of what she had felt, or hadn't felt, when they didn't question a thing that Marcus had told them, just letting her go with a smile and a wave.

"That was your mistake," she said. "For which I paid the price. My mistake was trusting you."

She chose her next words as precisely as she could, and then spoke them.

"After a trauma like mine, it's easy to wallow in bitterness and self-pity. But both grief and guilt have to be faced, dealt with, exorcised. There's more--there has to be more--to being heroes than simply defeating villains. You have a role, a purpose, far greater than yourselves. You have to set examples, lead the way. You represent what we should be, what we dream of becoming, not what we are."

She glanced up at the mansion, saw Jessica and Xavier watching from an upper window, and knew the Spider-Woman's hearing could pick up every word she said, clearly.

"If you do that, even a little, then perhaps what I went through will have a positive meaning. It's your choice."

She stooped to pick up the tea pitcher and glasses. The Beast squatted on his haunches.

"Carol," he said, "what about you? What will you do?"

"Pick up the pieces of my life," she said, setting the items back on the tabletop. "Start again. Survive. I'm good at that."

She was glad that Wanda was the one who spoke next.

"Carol, I would give anything for this never to have happened," said the Scarlet Witch. "I--we are so sorry."

She favored the mutant woman with a smile.

"I know, Wanda. Don't worry, I'll be all right."

A few minutes later, the Avengers were gone.

Hank didn't even try to talk to his old teammates.

Carol went back inside the mansion and got a big hug from Ororo.

Neither one of them said anything, or broke the hug, for a good many minutes.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Ms. Marvel / Warbird:**

** A Prize For Three Empires**

Part Four

_by DarkMark_

Within a very short time, Carol Danvers learned that her tenure in Xavier's mansion was to be just as adventurous as her time with the Avengers. That was fine by her, as long as the professor kept up his work of relinking the connections in her brain.

It had not been two weeks since the incident with her former teammates when she joined Charles, his colleague Moira MacTaggart, and Peter Corbeau, the scientist who created the Starcore orbital lab, on a boat in which they were tracking the progress of the X-Men in a desperate fight against Magneto. Apparently Magneto didn't like the idea of Xavier being a non-participant. He used his powers from long distance, pulled Xavier's metal chair right up from where it was anchored on the boat, and drew him through the air to his island base. Carol insisted that Corbeau take the boat to the isle so that they could join in the battle. But a few seconds after that, Magneto had used his power to short-circuit every electrical device on board, depowering the craft and shocking Carol, Corbeau, and Moira unconscious.

By the time they awoke, Magneto had been beaten and had fled. Storm created a gale-force wind that blew Corbeau's hydrofoil yacht, the _Dejah Thoris II_, into harbor on the island. They joined the X-Men for a cookout on the beach, then repaired or replaced the damaged system components on the craft.

She also got to see the big Blackbird jet the X-Men had used to fly to the island rising apparently on its own power from a watery grave. A few seconds later, she saw it was supported by Colossus, who was carrying the whole thing on his back.

Carol figured it wasn't going to be dull around there.

In the days to come, Carol had had a decent number of talk-sessions with Logan and shared a number of Molsons with him in the process. The Prof had confided to Wolverine that such would speed up Carol's recovery, but the Canadian would have done it anyway. They talked over old times and Carol told him of her life from her escapades with Captain Marvel through the business with Rogue. Wolverine didn't say anything when she told him of the bit with Marcus and the Avengers. But the way he was looking, she figured it was good that Marcus was already dead.

Logan talked a bit about his recruitment for the team of Canadian heroes who became Alpha Flight, his encounter with the Hulk, how he became an X-Man and sliced his superior's tie in half when the latter had protested his leaving, and some of his adventures since then. There were some subjects on which he dummied up, and Carol knew not to press him on them.

For instance, when she asked how he got the adamantium in his skeleton and claws, he gave her a brief smile with one corner of his mouth and said, "I won it in a quiz program."

She also got to know the other X-Men quite well, and determined that, no matter what her subconscious fears told her, she was not going to see them as Avengers. Storm, the African weather-witch, was possibly her best friend after Logan. But she befriended all of them, Scott, Kurt, Kitty, Peter, Illyana, and Moira, in short order. In turn, they found Carol a worthy friend and ally, and all seemed touched by her emotional plight.

Thus, Carol Danvers quickly became part of the mutants' strange extended family.

Even Charles Xavier, who affected the Stern Professor role in many of his dealings with others, was a nice sort once you looked past his facade. He was a master of concealing his emotions, but Carol knew, from her therapy, that he understood the workings of the human heart more than most gave him credit.

Many of their therapy sessions took place in his study, a setting not unlike a psychiatrist's office. He had had a couch moved in there and Carol reclined on it while, not three feet away, Xavier sat in his wheelchair and probed her mind, asking for verbal feedback.

"Carol. Tell me what you see now."

Her eyes tightly shut, Carol responded: "An instrument panel. In a plane. I think I'm flying it."

"How do you feel?"

"I don't feel anything."

"Just a moment. Now. How do you feel?"

She swallowed. "A bit nauseous. The instructor's making me do a barrel roll."

"Why is he doing that?"

"He...wants to see me wash out. Doesn't think I can make it as a pilot."

"Do you want to throw up?"

"Be damned if I'll throw up! I'm not going back home and tell Dad I washed out. I came here to fly this damn plane. And I'm going to."

"Do you remember any more?"

"I think so. I'm making the plane do some more maneuvers. I'm kinda pushing the envelope."

"You're smiling. Is this a pleasant memory?"

She giggled. "I'm watching the instructor turn green."

There were other times in which she broke down crying, either because the professor had connected her up with an extremely painful memory or in frustration over not being able to reclaim all of her feeling over an incident. It would take time to reforge the connections. And that was all the more frustrating in itself.

One of the most frustrating things, she told Logan, involved her old lover, Michael Rossi. "I loved him, Wolverine," she said. "Yet I can't picture his face, hear his voice. And when I think of him--"

She hesitated, knowing she was losing it.

"--I feel nothing," she finished.

Then she apologized for her outburst, and Wolverine tried to comfort her, and Kitty entered all too soon to tell him the professor needed him, and that was that.

Logan didn't ask her what she thought about their old relationship.

Then the X-Men had an adventure in which she did not participate and brought several others back with them who would figure as largely in Carol's future as the Avengers had in her past.

It began while she, Xavier, and several of the team were on the island Magneto had vacated, beginning to establish it as a "forward base" for the X-Men, since the mansion was too easy a target. (In the process, she had almost broken down in tears before Wolverine when she confessed that she couldn't remember what making love with Michael Rossi had felt like, which was probably why Xavier had done the specific psycho-session with her later.) But Cyclops and Storm, at the mansion, got a surprise visit from Corsair, one of a band of space-pirates and mercenaries whom the X-Men had worked with before.

Even more surprising was Cyclops's learning that Corsair, a big, mustached man in a red and black uniform who packed twin ray-pistols and knew how to use them to deadly effect, was his father.

The X-Men, but not Carol, were teleported away and took part in a battle in space which allied them with Corsair's band, the Starjammers, against an armada of starships led by an usurper of the Shi'ar race. The Shi'ar had established a powerful empire in space, almost as far-reaching as that of the Skrulls and Kree, and the mutant band had gotten caught up in their political upheaval by virtue of previous encounters with them and Charles Xavier's liason with their ruler, Lilandra.

When she heard about it, Carol's head whirled. She knew about the Skrulls and Kree, but the Kree-self of Ms. Marvel which might have known of the Shi'ar was inaccessible to her. Keeping up with galactic politics seemed beyond her capacities, at that time.

Moreover, Xavier himself had suffered a mental power feedback that threatened to mindwipe him, and the X-Men had returned to their new island with him, accompanied by Princess Lilandra, a telepath named Oracle who had restored his mind (and Carol felt great empathy for Charles at that moment), and Corsair's pirate band, the Starjammers.

While the mutants were tending to their stricken professor, Carol, unable to aid them, had donned a red jumpsuit with blue gloves, boots, and belt--it looked as much like a super-hero uniform as any of the X-Men's, really--and had begun a morning workout, going through some martial arts kata.

A few minutes after she began, she became aware of five persons watching her. Only one of them were human.

She looked up and saw them, standing not far off.

One of them was Raza Longknife, an orange-skinned male whose right arm was a powerful steel prosthesis and whose right eye, also lost, had been replaced by an optic sensor which fulfilled the same function. He was bald except for a long topknot of golden hair which hung down to the bottom of his shoulder blades, and he wore a blue uniform and carried a strange sword magnetically clasped to his back.

Another was the woman Corsair had named Mamselle Hepzibah, after a character in the Pogo comic strip. It seemed appropriate, because she was covered all over with black and white fur, had catlike ears abutting the top of her white hairdo, and bore a big skunklike tail behind her, though, thankfully, not the skunk's smell. She was dressed in a brief yellow body-garment and had a ray-pistol in a red gunbelt buckled about her waist.

The third, Ch'od, was the most impressive. He was very large, very green, had huge red eyes and huge red lips, finlike ears, fins on the sides of his arms, and was scaly and massive indeed. Ch'od was an amphbian and looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon on steroids. His only garment was a pair of blue-black trunks with a red belt. Luckily, he was friendly to her.

The fourth was Ch'od's pet, Cr'reee, something of a cross between a monkey and a weasel, covered with pink and white fur and scampering across his shoulders, peering around Ch'od's head to look at Carol.

The fifth and last was Peter Corbeau.

"Hola, yellow-hair," said Raza. "What be you about here?"

"Combat exercises," snapped Carol. "And what are you after, Mr. Topknot? Working on a few fantasies for tonight?"

Hepzibah giggled. Even Ch'od laughed. Raza's mouth opened a second, and his orangish color went deeper.

Carol smiled and went on with her working.

"Uh, Carol," Peter Corbeau said, rather embarrasedly. But before he could say anything more, Raza stepped a bit closer to her.

"Mightn't it be a bit easier to exercise, yellow-hair, had you a partner?"

She stopped and looked at him. "If your 'partnership' means more than just sparring, Topknot, you can forget it. Tall, shiny, and orange doesn't turn me on." Now Ch'od was laughing fit to make his little pet scamper up and down his great frame, seeking a level place on which to perch.

However, Hepzibah advised, "Tongue watch you should, pink-skin. Raza mads out easily. Gives snick-snick to people like he don't."

"Ah, Hepzibah, Raza may have a temper, but he doesn't run people through just for making light of him," rumbled Ch'od. Carol raised her eyebrows. The behemoth was almost as cultured as Hank McCoy.

Peter finally broke in. "Hold it, all of you. Carol, I'd like to run a test on you, if I might."

"What kind of test?"

"Reactions, combat skills, the whole nine yards," said Corbeau, in the manner he used when charming government bureaucrats out of more money for Starcore. "The Professor, before his, er, recent trouble, wanted to see how well your physical self was, under combat conditions. You know, coordination between mind and brain, strength levels, all that stuff."

"Oh, hell," said Carol, putting her hands on her hips. "Peter, I can fight. That I can tell you without being wired up."

"Yes, but just how well?" he asked. "Learning your exact capacities will help in your treatment. And I'm sure he intends to continue that treatment once he recovers. All I want to do is plant a few computer sensors in your gloves, your boots, and your belt for awhile, and have you roughhouse with the, er--"

"Starjammers," offered Ch'od.

"Yes, the Starjammers here. They've offered to give us a hand in the matter. What do you say, Carol? Remember, it'd help you, in both the short and long run."

She shook her head, her blonde hair cascading about her shoulders. "You have just _got_ to be kidding, Peter. I've been fighting ever since my dad put on the gloves with me, when I was a girl. And I know you've given me the eye enough times to know how well I move. Now you've got to run me like a maze-rat through some kind of test?"

Raza looked at her. "Well, yellow-hair, you're right about one thing. Sparring with you wouldn't teach me anything."

She looked back at him, with a surly expression. Then she grinned.

"Wire me up, Doctor. I feel like kickin' some orange-colored butt."

So, a few minutes later, Carol and the Starjammers were facing off in a room of Magneto's installation in which exercise mats had been spread on the floor. Peter Corbeau sat at the controls of a computerized sensor unit which received impulses from devices he had implanted in Carol's outfit. The combatants were sizing each other up.

Raza forced a smile. He extended a hand, his living one. "Let us grasp hands, yellow-hair, as thy kind does, and swear friendship afore the fight. 'Twould be a meet and proper thing to do, since we are allies."

Carol said, evenly, "Raza. My name is Carol. Carol Danvers. I much prefer it to 'yellow-hair'."

She knew he was going to try to yank her off her feet when she took his hand. He figured she was going to try the same thing. They were both right. What he wasn't prepared for was just how strong the yellow-hair was.

Raza went flying, and barely had time to blurt out, "By the Black Nebula," before rolling and landing on his shoulders.

Carol grinned. He was right. Combat training was more fun with partners.

The other two seemed to think so as well, because Carol found herself beset by Ch'od and Hepzibah at the same time. For the next few minutes, Carol leaped, dodged, whacked, rolled with punches, and had as fine a time of it as the others. Finally, though, Raza snagged her ankle with his metallic arm. Before she could do anything about it, Raza, Hepzibah, and even the little monkey-weasel had dogpiled her, and Ch'od was holding the whole mess of them down with his two big hands. Carol's cheek abutted the cold tile floor.

"Superb effort, sunhair," gasped Hepzibah. "Impressed even me."

"Aye," affirmed Raza. "Dost thou yield?"

She worked her head around and asked, "Do I have a choice?"

"Not if you want to get up," affirmed Ch'od.

"Finks," muttered Carol, nose to nose with Cr'reee, who was chittering out his opinion of the affair.

Peter Corbeau was concealing his astonishment. The woman had taken blows that would have laid the average human female up for a week. Her agility, combat smarts, and strength were all top-of-the-line. She didn't have super-powers, but if there was an opening for a female Captain America, he was going to put her name in the running.

"How'd I do, Doctor?" asked Carol, as the others helped her up.

He nodded at her. "Pretty good," he said.

And that was how Carol met the Starjammers.

Shortly after that, she met someone not nearly so hospitable.

It started that very afternoon, with herself and several other X-Men gathered about the prof's wide-screen TV, watching a British news program on the Beeb via satellite. Senator Robert Kelly was being interviewed about the aims of his congressional Committee On Mutant Affairs. Whether he liked it or not, more people were referring to it as COMA rather than CMA, which was how he insisted on it at the office.

Their attention had been drawn to the show by a news clip, played earlier, of the X-Men's battle with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Their heroism did little to change Senator Kelly's views that mutants were dangerous--all mutants--and that they had to be investigated. If such investigation proved them too much of a threat, he said, "they must be dealt with."

Carol, standing behind Moira and Kitty, saw it and wondered if she wasn't watching the genesis of a new Hitler in blow-dried hair and three-piece suit.

Moira MacTaggart turned to the others and spelled out the problems the government could cause for them. The FBI office formerly headed by Amos Duncan held detailed files on all the original X-Men, and God only knew what on the second team. If they got into the hands of Kelly's committee, there was no telling what damage they could do to the team's security.

Kitty, belying her youth, came up with a workable solution: design a virus program open-ended enough to erase all references to the X-Men, plug it into a central federal data bank, and let it rip. There were, of course, the possibilities of isolated units, but they'd just have to deal with that as it came up. How they were to get the virus into a federal data bank was another matter, entirely.

The Starjammers designed the virus for them. Carol and Logan put their heads together, grabbed Ororo for a third party, and got to work on the cloak-and-dagger end of it.

A familiar thrill went through Carol's body. She might not be a super-heroine anymore, but she could be a secret agent with the best of 'em till the day she died.

So it was that Nightcrawler drove the three of them up to the Pentagon one day soon afterwards. Carol wore an Air Force colonel's uniform. Wolverine had on the garb of a Canadian army captain. Ororo had on a chic black dress, hat, and shades, and hoped she looked enough like an expert in something about to testify before the Joint Chiefs to fool the guards.

Luckily, she did, and all three were admitted.

A funny thing happened on the way down the hall.

Carol bumped into a woman in a green blouse and long checkered skirt going the other way. Both of them glanced at each other, apologizing simultaneously, until they caught sight of each other's face.

"Danvers," said the woman.

"Rogue," said Carol.

That was when the fight began.

In the process of it, Rogue temporarily stole Wolverine's powers and rendered him unconscious. Nothing Carol or Storm, who switched to her working clothes, did made much difference against their powerful foe. But Nightcrawler soon bamfed in and Wolverine made a comeback, giving Carol, who was less equipped to fight the villainess--as little as she liked it--a chance to break away and get to the computer banks they sought.

Just as she was about to upload the Starslammer's virus-laden disk, she heard someone behind her say, "Hello, Carol. I've been looking forward to this moment."

She wheeled to see Nick Fury standing there with a gun.

The gun went off. Carol went backward.

Standing over her body, she heard him say, in a different voice, "That was almost too quick, too easy, Carol. I somehow expected better of you."

She let him get close enough, then kicked up high and knocked the gun out of his hand.

Whatever her combat reflexes were, Carol thought, they must have checked out A-OK. She had been able to dodge the shot just enough to take a grazing shot along the side of her temple, near the hairline. She waded in with both fists, pinned Fury under her, and had at him. No matter what had gotten into Nick--if this was Nick, and not some kind of LMD or double--nobody shot at her and got away with it, unless they shot really, really good.

After a couple of punches, she found she was slugging Storm.

The sight made her hesitate, and Storm kicked up at her and drove her back. Carol dodged several other powerful kicks, taking the blows on the front of her arms.

This wasn't Nick, and it wasn't Storm. She had a good idea now of who it was. She ducked in, wrapped her arms around her opponent's neck, and applied the kind of hold which was the real version of the Vulcan knockout pinch.

Within half a minute, Storm slumped in Carol's arms. Only she wasn't Storm anymore.

She was Mystique.

Mystique, who, as Carol now knew, had been responsible for Rogue stealing her powers in San Francisco. Mystique, without whom Carol would still have been Ms. Marvel. Mystique, without whom she would still have memory, emotional connections, in their entirety, instead of being won back a bit at a time.

Mystique, who lay unconscious beneath her, and who had obligingly dropped a most tempting gun.

Carol stepped over her hated foe. She picked up the gun

(just testing it just seeing how well it handles it's loaded it could do the job)

and held it in both hands. Not pointing it at Mystique. Not yet. That was too great a temptation.

For a long moment Carol wavered. Then she glanced at the computer console, in a portal of which the virus disk was loaded.

She sighed. Well, there'd be enough time to make a decision about Mystique afterward. She still had a job to do.

Carol bent over the keyboard and began her work, and hoped like hell Mystique would wake up and make a move so that she could shoot her.

A couple of MP's burst in right then, guns at the ready. They had heard the shot. They saw the strange, grey-fleshed woman on the floor.

"Everything under control, Colonel?" asked one of the men.

She nodded to Mystique. "I'd say so. Get her up and get her out of here, boys. And call the duty staff to take care of things here. I'll stay here till they show up."

The MP's slapped Mystique awake and took her in hand. Just before they dragged her away, she swore that she and Carol would meet again, and that she would be less merciful with her foe the next time. "There is death between us," Mystique snarled.

"Take her away," said Carol. They did.

Then she went to her task. Absently, she punched up her old access code. Two separate screens popped up, containing data on both Carol Danvers and Ms. Marvel.

She studied what she found in both reports. There was a little she didn't know, but not much.

Shrugging, she erased both files.

Then she finished the upload of the virus, took out the disk, and put it back in her purse. After the duty staff showed up, she saluted and made her way out. She rejoined Storm and Wolverine, learning that Ororo had created a mini-tornado to whip Rogue out of the area. All three of them joined Kurt in the car, and told him the mission had been a success. "Wunderbar," he said, and drove them away.

Carol thought she had finally laid her ghosts to rest, and could begin life anew.

She was half right.

Shortly after Carol's Pentagon adventure, the X-Men had two battles in which she was not involved. Considering their foes were Dracula and Belasco, she was just as glad she hadn't been. In the latter fight, Colossus's six-year-old sister spent seven years in a time-warp and came back to them a thirteen-year-old. Carol was horrified, but Ilyana seemed to take it in stride.

Professor Xavier finally brought himself out of his coma. Princess Lilandra was there to see it, and was overjoyed. She received word that required her to return home shortly thereafter, and Xavier was deemed not well enough to travel. But she insisted on having the X-Men come home with her for a short vacation, and the Starjammers too, and the invitation was extended to Carol as well. She agreed to go, with only Corsair, who had suffered at the hands of the Shi'ar, demurring.

Before they departed, though, Xavier called Carol to his bedside. "I believe I'm up for one last session before you go," he said. "Are you?"

Thunderstruck, she said, "Well, I suppose, yes, Charles, but why now? Why for me? You've just been through a coma, and all..."

"Consider it a gift," he said, and did not smile.

He dimmed the lights and Carol pulled up a chair and sat beside his bed. When she had made herself comfortable as she could, given the circumstances, she closed her eyes and went as far into a trance state as she could on her own.

Xavier's mental tendrils pushed slowly and gently into her brain-self, like a plant's roots extending into soil.

He seemed to know what he was looking for, and he found it. She found out later that Wolverine had told him how she had spoken to him of remembering having sex with Col. Rossi, her first lover, but not being able to remember what it felt like, or why she had done it. Telling it, she almost shed tears of frustration.

"Oh," she said, feeling Xavier's mind touching a node of memory.

"What do you see, Carol?"

"I--" She breathed for a few moments, flushing with embarrassment. "I--really--I see Logan. We're in his room."

"You may speak without fear, Carol. No one will disturb you. No one will reveal your feelings. Tell me what you see."

"I'm--we're both back from Lubyanka. I'm recovering. He wanted to see me. I wanted to see him, oh, god, I wanted to see him. I--"

She was silent for a few moments. Then she said, "I, I can feel--"

"Tell me what you see, Carol."

"I see Logan's chest. I've unbuttoned, unbuttoned his shirt. And I...and I..."

Xavier didn't say anything.

Carol let it loose in a stream of consciousness and couldn't stop. Feelings, sensations, touching textures, smells, remembered sounds and sights and how it felt...down there...

She had long since forgotten about the presence of Charles Xavier. And if he felt like a voyeur at that moment, he never revealed it.

Within a very few minutes, Carol had experienced her first satisfying climax since the day of her encounter with Rogue.

She sat there, panting, coming back to herself, putting the pieces together again. That was when she finally registered, again, that Charles Xavier was still in the room with her.

"You," she said. "Like Marcus. You wanted me to put on a show for you." Her rage began to rise within her like a great black beast.

"No, Carol," he said, quietly. "I pulled out of your mind shortly after activating your memory. There was no pleasure for me in that doing, physically. I just made sure that you did not hurt yourself. Did you want to be able to feel physical love again, Carol?"

"I--yes," she admitted. "Yes, I did want it."

He said, "Do you think you will be able to feel physical love, now? By yourself, or with a partner?"

Carol sighed. "Maybe," she said. Then she said, "No. I know I'll be able to. If I could feel--that."

Then she gasped and said, "I can make love again. Professor, I can make love again."

"Yes, Carol," he said. "I believe you can, too. If you think I have acted in an improper manner, I apologize."

She sighed. "No. Not really, I guess. Thank you, Professor. Very much."

"You're welcome, Carol. But you're giving me too much credit. And yourself, not enough."

That was when Carol bent double in her chair, and began shedding the first of a very long series of tears.

She had her womanness back.

When it was done, she insisted on hugging Xavier, much to his dismay. Then she stumbled out of the room, glad nobody was in the hall at the time, and made her way back to her own quarters.

After bathing and dressing again, she sought out Wolverine, who was supervising Colossus's workout in the Danger Room. "Thank you," she said, coming up behind him and laying a hand gently on his shoulder.

"For what?" he asked. He turned to look at her.

The look in her eyes gave him enough information.

"Thank you," she said again.

Wolverine nodded. "Yer welcome, hon," he said.

Carol left, and nothing more was said about it. To himself, Wolverine mused: _I knew I was good. But I didn't know I was _that _good_.

Then he turned back to watching Colossus trying to lift a multi-ton weight.

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

Ms. Marvel (Warbird):

A Prize For Three Empires

Part Five

by DarkMark

After the session with Xavier, Carol slept as well as she had in weeks. The next morning, she was up bright and early and joining the X-Men aboard Lilandra's yacht for the pleasure cruise. To finally board an alien starship and meet persons of yet another alien culture...that brought back some of the thrill she'd experienced years ago when she started working for NASA.

Unfortunately, it was a thrill of a different sort than she expected.

She enjoyed her trip aboard the Shi'ar starcraft, getting the grand tour, talking to the pilot, the engineer, and just about anybody involved with the nuts-and-bolts running of the ship. If this sort of technology could be duplicated on Earth, the planet would cease being a backwards crossworld for spacefaring races and would become a spatial power in its own right. But she knew that the techstuff was far beyond Earth science as it currently stood.

They arrived on the Shi'ar throneworld. At one point, Carol was almost certain she detected the form of Deathbird. But she shrugged it off. She'd been under a lot of stress lately, and her memory was probably doing a spontaneous flashback to an earlier battle. She accompanied the rest of the group to a reception party in the capital city.

Of all of them, only Wolverine seemed discomfited. He grabbed Carol's arm at one point and burst out that they were being conned. She didn't understand it. But she chalked it up, at least in part, to job stress, and asked him to dance. He looked at her strangely, then subsided.

The others, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Kitty, and Nightcrawler, all seemed to be having a fine old time with their Shi'ar hosts. So Logan appeared to let it ride, and Carol prepared to cut the equivalent of a rug with him on the ballroom floor.

But before they could begin, two of the aliens cut in, asking Carol if they could do a bioscan on her. She was different, they said, from their other guests, and they were curious. "I'm not a mutant, if that's what you mean," Carol said. One of the pair said that was precisely why they wanted to examine her.

She wasn't sure how protocol worked with the Shi'ar. But she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, the X-Men had fought beside Princess Lil and Xavier was her lover, so harming Xavier's guests would be a definite faux pas. She touched Logan's shoulder and said, "Later, pal." The two aliens had activated what appeared to be anti-gravity controls and whisked her away from the ballroom, to another chamber in the building.

Logan was yelling something at her for a second, but she wasn't sure of what it was.

A few minutes later, they set her down in another chamber full of equipment and manned by what appeared to be a number of Shi'ar techs. The two guided her forward to a spot on the floor, which appeared equidistant between two ceiling projectors. She shook their hands off.

"My apologies, sirs, but I'm really not accustomed to being pushed," she said. "A simple 'Stand here, please', is all that would be required."

One of them looked at the other. The other nodded. The first said, "Very well, then, honored guest. Stand here, please."

So Carol stood there. She was a bit wary, but nothing untoward had been seen yet.

"Now. Lift your arms to shoulder height, and spread your legs a bit. Please."

She did so, and they thanked her.

That was when an energy field was activated which grabbed her roughly about the wrists and ankles, held her immobile, wrapped itself around her body in a nimbus of gold-white power, and lifted her several feet off the floor. "What in the-" was as much as she got out.

She looked at the Shi'ar, who weren't Shi'ar anymore.

They had dropped their illusions. She was facing a horde of Brood members. Insectoid forms of life outfitted with deadly fangs, claws, and dual poisoned stingers on their tails. They had no love for Shi'ar and even less for humans, or any sort of animal life. Mostly, they used humanoids as nesting-beings for their eggs, which they implanted in their living bodies. When the eggs hatched, the Brood-beings-the X-Men called them Sleazoids-physically took over and transformed the host-body into their image, and retained whatever knowledge, skills, and power their host possessed.

That was why they had projected the illusion. They had actually brought the X-Men to the Brood homeworld, in a living starship. They wanted to harvest the X-Men's unique powers.

But Carol Danvers's genetic makeup was not mutant. It was part-human, part-Kree. That made her an interesting case. So they conned her into the examination.

She screamed as the projectors forced energy bolts painfully up and down her body. It hurt like hell.

The Brood scientists noted that drily in their records, and stepped up the test.

In a way, she was a lot luckier than the X-Men. They ended up with Brood eggs implanted within them. Save for Wolverine's ability to destroy his inhabitant with his healing factor, the team probably would have fallen prey to their foes.

But that perspective would have been mighty hard for Carol to see just then. The blazing light-heat force wound its way like a thread of red-hot iron through her every genetic helix, mapping them out for the Sleazoids. She screamed until she thought she couldn't scream any more, cursed them with every epithet she knew, and was dumbfounded when one of the Sleazoids asked her to translate one phrase for them.

Good god, she thought, when she had time to think between pulses of pain. First Marcus Immortus. Then Rogue. Then this? God, are we reenacting the book of Job here? Help me!

And when the pain didn't stop coming, she found that she almost could get used to it. That was horrifying.

It wasn't as horrifying as what they started doing to her next.

They made random alterations in her DNA. They transformed her momentarily from human into Brood-like thing, and back again, several times. Then they morphed her into different forms. They called it "evolutionary modification". She had other names for it, and them, and flung them at her captors as strongly as she could, however strongly that was.

While her mind stayed whole, her body repeatedly became things disgusting to her psyche. It made her nauseous, frightened her, and angered her. And she worried that, after any of the morphings, they might not choose to revert her to humanoid form.

There was one more strange thing about it.

Carol did not give way to despair or defeatism.

She did not collapse into a well of fatalism or depression.

In her life, she had been brutally beaten by an alien female, changed into a split-personality super-hero, endured numerous physical battles, been psychically manipulated and basically raped, had her memories and powers stolen, and somehow come through it all alive and basically sane.

Thus, the Brood had chosen a tougher specimen than they could have imagined. Carol's thoughts were not of how nice it would be for the pain and her life to end. They were more along the lines of: When I get out of this, and I will get out of it, I'll find a way to make you pay. I'll change the shape of your bodies for you...and then some. Just wait. Just wait...

Even the Sleazoid in charge admitted, "Her physical form we can alter at will. What has proven most fascinating is her psychic resistance."

What was even more fascinating, though the Brood did not comprehend it, was how Carol's half-Kree genetics were reacting with the energy matrix. They were bonding with it, reaching out to cosmic energy sources, transforming the now-naked woman in the field generators' grip. It would prove to be a lot more than the aliens could handle.

But all that would only be of concern if she survived, and the Brood were determined to push her beyond the point of survival, just to find out where it was.

Enter Wolverine, claws unsheathed, body a little lumpy from the effects of fighting off the egg's possession attempt. He tore up the Sleazoids and their devices, and a weary, naked, human-formed Carol tumbled into his arms.

She had become so used to feeling the pain that the lack of it actually felt worse.

Logan held her up, draped a cut-down section of curtain about her, and helped her fashion it into a makeshift dress. By the time they were finished with it, she was standing on both bare feet, unaided.

Her body looked normal. But she felt power pulsing inside her. More, even, than she had known as Ms. Marvel. Carol didn't know what she had become, but she was certain both she and Logan would soon find out.

So she grabbed a Brood weapon from one of the dead Sleazoids and accompanied Logan on a hunt for the other X-Men. Part of her was trying to process all the information she'd taken in over the last few days, of two alien races, one not in the least human, and all their technology and non-Earthness. The rest of her, which, thankfully, was dominant, was acting like a secret agent and a warrior, and knew such things could be contemplated later.

The two of them hooked up with the others, fought Broodlings, saved Princess Lil, and escaped in her captured space-yacht. But there were still eggs within the other X-Men, whose progeny the Queen of Broodworld wanted to claim. So Brood starships pursued them, and battle was joined.

While manning the weapons board of Lilandra's ship, Carol had a spell of altered vision. Her consciousness was impinged by a blast of color and perceived patterns that made her wonder if the Brood hadn't dosed her with something on the order of LSD. But it passed. At least, it passed the first and second times.

When it hit her the third time, there was no ignoring it.

The energy pulsing within her reached out to the stars, the sources of cosmic energy, and transformed her into a red-hued being of force, emitting fiery coronas from her body. She was filled with power, and instinctively knew how to broadcast it, and manipulate it.

So she took the gift of a thousand stars and blasted four Brood ships out of existence with the equivalent of borrowed stellar plasma. She felt the Broodlings within dying.

Somehow, she wasn't torn up too much about it.

I told you I'd pay you back, she thought.

Then she looked down at herself. She saw the energy visibly exuding itself from her body, and knew that she had power beyond anything Ms. Marvel could hope to claim. She also noticed that she was nude, having burned off the curtain-dress with her powers.

Draping herself in any other sort of cloth, while she was using her power (and another track of her mind was astonished at her new might, and astonished that she wasn't more awestruck by its existence), would probably be useless. Carol wondered if the energy might be able to be manifested in some sort of visual / tangible form.

So she thought, and it was done. She designed several different forms of clothing, materialized them on her body, and discarded them in the space of seconds, until she found one she could settle on. It was a red-and-white outfit, with two stars on her left breast, the symbol of her new power.

She had not been wearing it for over a minute when she heard another voice in the chamber. "Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?"

"Kitty," said Carol, swinging around, bathing the room in light.

Kitty, in a spacesuit, had looked up at her. "Carol! Thank heaven. Is that...you?"

Luckily enough, it was. The two of them rounded up the X-Men and Lilandra and Carol showed off her new power for them, charging the yacht's depleted energy cells with her own energies. The others were most impressed. Later, helping Colossus with hull repairs, she told him what had happened to her.

"My old friend, Captain Marvel, was gifted with cosmic awareness," she'd said through a communicator. "An ability to become one with the universe. I think I've gone beyond that. His was a spiritual merger. Mine is physical. Somehow, when I use my power, I tap into a white hole. My energy source is the primal fabric of a universe."

Piotr admitted, "Such abilities would be invaluable to the X-Men. You are now a mutant, and you have always been a friend."

Carol shook her head. She had made her decision some time before, and she chose to let Colossus know of it first.

She told him of how she had once hitchhiked off to see a manned rocket launching at the Cape where she later worked for a year. She had wanted to be an astronaut herself, to discover new worlds and meet alien cultures. "As Ms. Marvel, I almost made it," she admitted. But now such a thing was within her grasp. And she meant to take it.

"Earth was Carol Danvers's home, Colossus. But I fear it has no place for-Binary."

Nonetheless, she completed the adventure with the X-Men, setting the soul of one of the Brood's living slave-ships free and helping them and the Starjammers destroy Broodworld. The X-Men's Brood eggs were neutralized. Professor Xavier had such an egg implanted within himself, but even that turned out for the better; his old body was transformed and destroyed, while his mind was transferred into a newly-cloned body. The new Xavier had fully-healed legs, but it would take much therapy before he could use them normally.

Carol was not there for that incident, or for the X-Men's battle with the Hellfire Club, Callisto, and the Morlocks directly afterward. She had the Starjammers drop her off within flying distance of Boston, leaving the mutant band to deal with the Brood-Xavier. She needed time to think, time to wind up affairs.

Time to spend with her parents.

So she left a fire-trail across the sky that had stargazers rushing to see if they could be the first to pin their name on a new comet, and made civilians wonder if the Human Torch wasn't moving into town. She landed near Beverly, the Boston suburb in which her parents lived, changed into a sweater and pants (both synthesized for her aboard the Starslammer's spacecraft), blinked out of her Binary self, and hoofed it into town as plain old Carol Danvers.

As she treaded up the steps, she wondered how she should greet Joe and Marie. A big hug? A cry of delight? Some other demonstration?

She decided to hell with that, and voted to go with her natural feelings, whatever they were. Thus, she rang the doorbell, and was glad that the other houses on the block were fairly far away.

Joe opened the door, in T-shirt, brown pants, and socks. For home, Carol noted, he didn't dress formal.

He gaped at her, then had her in his arms before he even finished saying, "Carol!"

Carol hugged him tightly and said, "Hello, Dad. It's good to be home."

She hoped she could fake what love she lacked.

Several minutes later, Carol and Joe and Marie were on the back patio digging into iced sherbet in bowls and trying to catch up on what each other had been doing. But, even though they tried to keep it light and familial, it was proving a strain.

For one thing, Carol couldn't really tell them what had been going on. She wasn't even sure how much she could tell her mother, and Mom already knew she had been Ms. Marvel. For another, she knew that her responses were off by a few notches, that she wasn't the same woman they had known before, even with all of Xavier's fine work.

"Carol?" said Marie. "Do you remember Nola Cameron? You know, the one who used to live down two blocks from us when you were in grade school?"

"Oh, yeah, Mom. Sure, Nola Cameron. Um, what's she doing?"

"She got married to Tom. Isn't that nice?"

"Sure," said Carol. "Tom. Bet he'll be good for her."

After a pause, Joe had asked her, "Carol. What is Tom's last name?"

"Dad?"

"I asked you, what is Tom's last name? Do you remember?"

She set the spoon back in her sherbet dish. "Dad. You know darn well there's a lot of things I don't remember. The answer is no. I don't remember Tom's last name, or probably this specific Tom. Is that all right?"

"Oh, dear," said Marie, wiping her hands on her apron to give her hands something to do.

"You don't even remember Nola, do you?" Joe stared at her without wavering.

Carol sat back in her metal deck chair. "No. I'm sorry, Dad, but-no."

"Then why did you lie to me? And your mother?"

"Oh, for chrissakes, Dad."

"Carol!" Mom was indignant. "You may be a grown woman, but this is still your father."

She put a hand to her forehead and rested her elbow on the chair's plastic arm cover. After a pause, she said, keeping her voice steady, "I'm sorry, Dad. And Mom. I was just trying to make you happy."

"You wanna know how to make me happy, Carol?" Joe waited for her answer.

"How, Dad?"

Joe leaned forward in his chair. "Tell me about everything this Xavier guy's been doing to you. And tell me everything you've been doing. If you haven't been working for the Company, then who?"

Mom sat like a Dresden doll, not daring to intervene at the moment.

Carol looked back at them both. "I can't tell you, Dad."

"Can't tell me about what? About Xavier, or about your work?"

"About either," she said. "About, I don't know, much of anything."

"Then why did you come here?" He spread his hands, in emphasis. "You look like my little girl, you move like her, you sound the same, but you're not the same. What are you involved in, Carol? Dope? Worse? What? Tell me."

"Joe, please," said Marie, touching his arm.

"Marie." He looked at her. She subsided.

Carol shook her head, fighting back tears. "I thought-I came back, and I thought that you'd be glad to see me."

"We are," said Joe.

"Of course we're glad to see you, Carol," said Marie, moving to Carol's side. "You know that. No matter what happens to you, you're my daughter, and I'd love you even if...well, even if you married somebody from outer space or something."

"Oh, Mom."

"Holy jeez," groaned Joe, rolling his eyes.

"Joe, that'll be enough," warned Marie. Then, to Carol, she said, "We know something bad happened to you in San Francisco. We want to believe this Mr. Xavier is, well, helping you. But if we don't know what he's doing to you-"

"He's helping me, Mom!"

"He's helping you. He's helping you," said Joe, making it sound as though he was cursing. "How the hell is he helping you? What the hell is he doing to you? Either you tell me, or I hire a private investigator and find out myself. And, Carol. You have no idea how much it hurts me-"

"Dad, please."

"-to have to say something like this to my own flesh and blood. Am I your father?"

"You know you are, dammit!"

"Carol!" warned Marie.

"Mom," retorted Carol, angrily.

"Then if I am your father, why the hell are you going behind my back with so much? You've been keeping a large part of your whole freaking life out there a big secret from me for over a year now. If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were really into something bad."

"Like what?" Carol stood over him, hands on hips, fixing him with a laser stare, and reminded herself to keep her powers in check. "Like junk? Prostitution? Spying for the Russians? Selling insurance? Tell me, Dad, I wanna know!"

"And I wanna know!" Joe was on his feet, staring her down. "You've got a lot of explaining to do, young lady-"

"Not so young anymore, Dad-"

"-And you are going to start explaining, if you intend to stay in this house."

"JOE!"

Both swivelled their heads in Marie's direction.

Mom didn't raise her voice very often. But when she did, even Dad knew to tread lightly till the storm was past.

"Whether you like it or not, Joseph Danvers, this is Carol, she is your daughter, and she's mine as well. And I have some say in what goes on under this roof, too. And I am not going to let you kick my daughter, our daughter, out in the street. Joe, tell me about the bids on the new Carleton project."

He looked at her with some irritation. "Marie, those are sealed bids. I don't talk about them to anybody but my partners."

"Oh? You're keeping secrets from me, Joe? I thought I knew you better than that, after being married to you for almost forty years. Well, Joe? Why are you keeping secrets?"

Carol rubbed the fingers of one hand together against her palm, thought You go, Mom, and prayed that her powers did not yet include telepathy.

"This is not the same thing, and you know it!" raged Joe.

"Oh, it isn't?" Marie stood facing him, hands on hips. "Does she have to face you like some-some damned Great Inquisitor or something, and tell you everything she's done and everybody she's done it with since the last time you've seen her?"

"Marie." He sighed, sitting down again, running his hands through what was left of his hair. "Do you know how much I care about Carol? Do you know how concerned I am about what's happening to her?"

Carol sighed, shaking her head. "Dad. A lot of bad things have happened to me, sure. But none of them because of Professor Xavier. He's helped me. Given me...I don't know. I guess you'd call it psychic therapy."

"Psychic whaaat?" asked Marie.

"Psychic therapy?" Joe was drop-jawed. "You mean that bald-headed guy with the rod up his...uh...that bald-headed guy is some kinda swami? Or a faith healer? Good Lord, I knew it. You're in a cult."

"I am not in a cult!"

"You sure as hell act like one!" He unleashed his anger now. "You don't call home enough, you keep your actions secret, and, facrissake, you show up at our house for a sleepover without even a friggin' packed bag! Tell me the truth, Carol. And if you know, Marie, I want you to tell me. Are you a Moonie?"

"No!"

"Are you an agent of this government or any other government? Or working for the Mob?"

"No!"

"Then what? What?"

Carol looked at her mother. Her mother begged her with her eyes to either tell her father the secret, or let her tell him. But Carol would not allow either to be done.

She sighed.

"Dad, look. This much, I can tell you. My therapy with Professor Xavier is just about over. It may already be over, I don't know, I'm going to check with him before I leave. He has helped me-lots. I've gotten a lot of my memories back, thanks to him. I've managed to make a lot of emotional connections. Not as many as I'd like, but a lot more than I would have without him. It'll just take some time."

She waited, forming her next words, and then continued before Dad could decide to get a word in edgewise.

"I've had-a really tough time lately. Part of it was due to those-enemy agents-who hit me in San Francisco. Part of it was due to something else. But I came through it, Dad. Just like you would have wanted me to. They tried to hurt me-but I guess you just raised me tougher than they expected."

Joe and Marie weren't saying a word. Carol sniffed, wiped her eyes a bit, and continued.

"There's a whole lot I just can't tell you. I want to have you be in charge of my bank account, and make sure my royalty checks are deposited while I'm away. Because I'm going away. Not forever, but...I've got a new job. And believe me, it doesn't involve drugs, or hooking, or being in a cult, or spying, or being in the Mob."

"Holy mother of...", Joe started.

"Joe, please," said Marie, cutting him off.

"I can tell you this much. You might be endangered if I did stay here. One of the agents that did the hit on me is still in circulation. When I leave-I'm going to see about getting you protection."

"Oh, my," said Marie.

"Don't worry, Mom, this is just a what-if precaution. With me gone, I don't think you'll be in any danger. But you know how it is...just because you're out of the Company doesn't mean the other side forgives you for what you've done."

For the first time since the conversation started, Joe nodded in agreement.

"When I leave here, I'll be gone for a while. It might be a long while. I'll be out of contact...you might even say, in deep cover. But I'll check back whenever I can. And I'll write. I promise I'll try to write. I won't be able to tell you everything. But at least I'll let you know I'm there."

"Wherever there is," muttered Joe. Marie put her hand on his shoulder, and he held his own hand over it.

"As for why I don't have a bag...call me a ditz." Carol smiled. "As for what Professor Xavier's been doing with me...well, let me give you a sample. Are you game, Dad?"

"Me?" He pointed a forefinger at his own chest, incredulously. "You want to do some psychowhatsis with me?"

"Uh, Carol, are you sure about this?" said Marie, warily.

"Sure I'm sure," said Carol. "You think I'd do something to hurt my dear old dad, who's probably got to get up early in the morning and bust the nuts of some 'crete and steel guys at the Carleton site? Not me, Mom."

"Carol, where you picked up that language I'll never know," said Marie. "And I don't want to hear it from you again while you're staying in this house. Agreed?"

"Agreed, Mom. Sorry."

"She probably picked it up from me, honey," said Joe. "You're only wrong about one thing. I'll have to bust their nuts about that a couple of weeks from now, when the project's underway. Tomorrow I gotta do it about something altogether different. But. What is this thing that you want to do? Is it habit-forming?"

"Come inside, lie down on the sofa, and you'll find out."

So they went inside, with Joe muttering, "This had better be good," and he lay down on the sofa with his hands laced over his stomach. Carol lifted his head and sat down, putting his head on her legs. Marie sat in a straightbacked chair and watched.

Carol placed her hands on his temples, closed her eyes, and went to work.

She had no psychic power to speak of, so the bit about giving him a Xavier treatment was a white lie. But she did command the powers of light, gravity, heat, and other solar-based powers. The gravity and magnetic flows were what she manipulated now.

Carol radiated her sensory powers through her father's body, and took note of his bloodflow, his magnetic aura, the state of each component of his body. There was much she could do, but much which had to be left to Nature.

Joe Danvers, lying closed-eyed in his daughter's lap, was soon quietly amazed.

His overwrought heartbeat, cranked up by work worries and fear over his daughter's fate, calmed and was made even, and an irregularity in it was corrected.

Several tired muscles in his back unknotted, and an area of his spine which was giving him a twinge of pain was attended to, and eased.

His breathing calmed, and he appeared to take in the same amount of oxygen with much fewer, better regulated breaths.

The redness left his face and a slight imperfection in one of his eyes was corrected.

Joe Danvers couldn't detect all of what his daughter was doing to him. But he had to admit to himself, If this is what that crazy bald guru-guy is teaching her, I gotta learn how to do it myself.

And Marie, who was more attuned to her husband than any other person besides himself, was wide-eyed at first, sensing her husband's calm, and then grateful for it. Carol apparently had developed a new super-power. She hoped it ran in the family.

Finally, Carol opened her eyes. "Session's done, Dad. How do you feel?"

"Great." He wiggled his toes, still encased in socks. "Did you Rolf me, or Est me? Did I reach Clear?"

"Nope. Just a little Danvers Diddle. Think it'll sell on the open market?"

"Honey, if you market this, I wanna be in on the ground floor!"

Both Carol and Marie were glad for the chance to laugh.

Joe finally said something else. "Just one more thing, Carol."

"What's that?"

"Next time you come, don't forget your luggage. Okay?"

"Okay, Dad." She wrinkled her nose in a grin. "I promise."

And a while after that, she slept in her old bed for the first time in a very, very long time.

next chapter

(HOME)


	6. Chapter 6

Ms. Marvel / Warbird:

A Prize For Three Empires

Part 6

by DarkMark

Carol stayed with her parents for another couple of days, then finally took her leave. The family shared one last cup of coffee around the breakfast table. Joe Danvers asked, "When'll we see you next, Carol?"

Carol said, "Hard to say, Dad. I'll be moving around a lot. To some pretty hairy places." She didn't like to worry him, but if he knew that she'd become a cosmic heroine, she estimated that he'd go through the roof. So to imply only a little danger was a mercy.

"Stay in touch, willya?" said Joe. "We'll miss you."

Carol got up from her chair, and her mother did the same. "I'll miss you, too, Dad," she said, and headed for the front door.

Marie trailed her there, and they spoke out of Joe's earshot. "Take care, Carol," said Marie, bussing her daughter on the cheek. "Even super-heroes aren't immortal."

"Don't I know it," said Carol, and returned the buss.

Marie regarded her daughter critically for a moment. "Is everything all right, dear? You've seemed...different, lately."

Yeah, Mom, thought Carol. A little matter of being tortured on a Brood spaceship, having my genetic matrix supercharged, and becoming a being who can tap into white holes for power. Other than that, I'm still the same old Carol, minus emotional contact to a lot of my memories, and probably some memories entirely.

"I'm fine, Mom. Really."

And Carol Danvers walked away from her home, with Marie watching until she was out of sight. Carol waved a couple of times to her, and told herself again and again not to forget the luggage next time.

She wanted to see the beach nearby one last time, since she wouldn't be coming back to it, and, possibly, to Earth, for a good long while. So she headed out to the place where the sea met the sand, found herself alone, since it was too cold for bathers at that time, and knelt down as the tide came in and felt of the water and sand one last time.

Then she transformed herself into Binary, and soared into the air on a trail of flame.

She had to check in with Charles Xavier before she left, to see if any more treatments were possible or even wanted. As unobtrusively as possible, Binary headed for Westchester County in New York. She passed a number of commercial jets, waved to them, and didn't know or care if they waved back.

Some time later, she touched down on the grounds of Xavier's private academy. She entered through the front, knowing the defensive devices would recognize her as a friendly presence. As she walked past the front hall to the living room area, she heard voices coming from the library. She reflected, as she walked, that it'd be fun to see them all again. Charles, Ororo, Kurt, Piotr, Kitty, Lil, and-

She turned a corner, walked in through an open doorway.

Rogue.

The seven persons within turned to see her at the sound of her high-heeled boots clicking and stopping.

Rogue.

The thief of her powers and mind looked up at her like a trapped scavenger.

Rogue!

Xavier had time enough to telepath, Stop, Carol! This woman is under our protection, just before Binary surged forward, grabbed Rogue, and planted an uppercut on her that sent her right through the roof.

It also sent Rogue high enough in the air to reach the upper atmosphere. But she had the power and flight ability of Ms. Marvel. She utilized it to soar back towards Xavier's school, ready for a payback.

Binary had rushed out to the mansion's front lawn, unwilling to continue the battle indoors. She looked up and tracked a flying object coming her way. She didn't have to use any of her powers to detect who it was.

"That's the spirit, kiddo," grated Carol. "Come and get me-if you can!"

Rogue looked grim, swooping back at her, leading with her fists.

Carol, not budging from her stand, ducked between them, swung her own fist up and across and tagged Rogue again with another blow. It had enough foot-pounds of force to cave in an elephant's skull.

For her part, Rogue went flying again, but in a direction parallel to the ground. She impacted on one of the sturdy oaks near Xavier's mansion and smashed it to splinters.

Binary grinned and rubbed her knuckles. This was going to be a helluva fun fight.

At that point, Colossus, in full metal jacket, grabbed her from behind and restrained her. Carol cried out in surprise and rage. "Binary," he said, "no more!"

"Lemme go, you big lummox!" she shouted. "I don't wanna hurt you, Peter-"

"You will have to, if you wish to continue this fight," the big Russian assured her, not slackening his group. "Is that what you want?"

She could have broken free of him easily enough. She could have heated up till he had to release her or melt. She could have flown up and away with him hanging on for dear life, until she swooped low and dropped him off. She might have even been able just to power out of his grip. But it just wasn't making sense. Why in the name of heaven was he defending Rogue?

"I want vengeance, Peter," she admitted. "Is that so wrong?"

The others had arrived by that time, Lil pushing Xavier in his wheelchair. He raised his hand and pointed straight at her, and had the most serious look on his face she'd ever seen on him.

"So long as Rogue remains under my roof, Binary, she has my protection."

Binary gaped.

When she found her voice, she said, "How can you say that, Charles? You know better than anyone what she did to me!" But her pressure against Piotr Rasputin's big arms had ceased, and Colossus had released her. Rogue had picked herself out of the remains of the oak tree and was shaking her head to get her reality construct back in one piece.

Storm was there, in a long coat, and looked like she was having difficulty with what she had to say. But she said it. "The child repents, my friend, and has been forgiven. Behold our newest X-Man."

"Is this true?" Binary radiated more disgust than even blazing star-force, at that moment. J. Edgar Hoover had given Dillinger his admission oath as an FBI agent. "I wouldn't have thought you capable of such cruelty."

Rogue, running her hands through her hair to get the wood chips out, walked up to Binary, but stayed just out of arm's reach. "What're you talking about? What's my life gotta do with you, huh? We never even met before today."

Carol remembered, then, that her Binary-self had an all-red face, "hair" composed of a blinding power-nimbus, and blank-white eyes. So she powered down and returned to her human form. "Perhaps this will help," she said, and stared defiantly at Rogue.

Five seconds later, Rogue broke the silence, in a small voice. "Carol Danvers," she said.

"The woman whose life you destroyed, Rogue," snapped Carol. "Except that now I possess the power to do the same to you."

Storm didn't know how much Carol meant what she implied. But she didn't want to find out. So she shifted the focus of attention by turning to Xavier and saying, in a loud voice, "Professor, if Rogue stays, I go."

Nightcrawler chimed in, "My apologies, Herr Professor, but we all go."

After a pause, Xavier said, "I see. We pick and choose who we help. Is that it? Some are worthy, some are not?"

Within three minutes, he convinced the mutant band to allow Rogue another chance, to give her a tryout as a team member. Carol could not believe what she was hearing.

And yet, Storm and Colossus and Kitty and Nightcrawler were buying it.

They admitted that they didn't like it, and they didn't like her. But they would give her a try as a teammate.

Binary's lip curled in revulsion, and she swore not to let Xavier's mind-tendrils touch her again that day, in therapy or any other way.

Inevitably, Xavier's bald head turned her way. "Carol?", he said, and waited.

She finally said, "What do you want from me, Charles? Understanding? Approval? I'll concede one, perhaps, but not the other. Rogue tore my life-my very soul-to shreds. And those scales can never be balanced. I'm sorry. I'm just not that forgiving."

Carol powered up in a brilliant power flux, with face of crimson and hair of golden flame.

"I have nothing to lose here, Charles. No real ties to break. That makes my decision easy. I'm not an X-Man...and all of a sudden, I'm glad."

With that, she blasted off and soared into the heavens.

She wanted to leave this crazy planet alone. She wanted to be rid of X-Men, Avengers, super-heroes who betrayed your trust, super-villains who broke your body and raped your soul and then had it all forgiven as if it was just a little mistake.

But where would she go? And who would show her the ropes of intergalactic existence?

Sighing, Carol admitted she had to think things over for a few days. So she became Carol Danvers again, went to the New York bank where she'd been keeping her money, and had the bulk of it wired to the Boston bank where her parents did business. She kept out enough to rent an apartment in Manhattan, and did so. She also called Xavier's answering service and told them where to bring her stuff, but warned them she wouldn't be in when she did.

But she was, because the two who came waited in the lobby until she got back from her business that day. Both rose from the couch where they had been sitting.

"Hello, you two," she said.

"Hiya, Carol," said Wolverine, stubbing out his cheroot in an ashtray.

"Good evening, Ms. Danvers," said Corsair, in Earth clothes, with a little bow. "We brought your clothes, computer, and whatnot with us. It's in a truck in the parking lot."

She smiled, not widely. "They knew you were two characters I wouldn't kick out on sight. Well, thanks. Let's get the stuff upstairs after dinner."

Logan said, "If it's McDonald's, I can treat us all."

"Don't look at me," said Corsair. "I've no Earth currency at all."

Carol said, "I've got the money, and I'm buying. Let me call a cab."

-C-

Over chicken Kiev for Carol, steak medium rare for Logan, and beef burgundy for Corsair, they talked things out.

"Look, Carol, about the latest development," said Logan, "if it makes you feel any better, I'm not exactly in love with the idea, either. When I saw her in Japan, I wanted to turn her into jerky on the spot."

"Why didn't you?"

He shrugged. "Mariko would'a given me hell for making a mess in her place." Then he said, "I dunno. Chuck Xavier's had some crazy ideas in his time, but this is the freakin' absolute craziest I've ever seen from him. I don't think anybody likes it."

"Well, after hearing what she did to you, Carol," said Major Summers, "I certainly don't."

She forked up some rice with her butter-filled chicken roll. "Which begs the question, Logan: why are you or any of the others putting up with that bitch? If you told Xavier you were leaving, wouldn't he have to relent? Or, barring that, wouldn't you be taking a position with more integrity?"

Logan hesitated, fork halfway to mouth, then went ahead and ate the morsel of steak, chewing carefully. Finally, he said, "There's three reasons. At least, from my viewpoint. Wanna hear 'em?"

"Please," said Carol.

Corsair was listening as well.

"First: there's no way I'm leaving the group. I had me a solo stint a short while back, an' I'll probably have more of 'em. Sometimes it's easier not havin' Cyke or Storm lookin' over your shoulder. Don't tell 'em I said that. But the main reason, crazy as it seems, is...they're family. Does that make sense?"

"If it does to you, it does to me. But they can't be my family. What's reasons two and three?"

Logan forked up some peas and ate them before speaking again. "The second is, they might need me more now. Maybe Charley's idea is somethin' like LBJ said about somebody else, he'd rather have 'er inside the tent pissin' out than outside the tent pissin' in. But if she really is a plant...or if she isn't, but she turns bad later...they're gonna need somebody like me around to help take care of things. Know what I mean?"

Carol said, "I think I can imagine. Okay, go on."

"The third reason is something you might smack me for. Promise you won't start a scene here?"

"I'll try. No promises."

"Okay. The bit is...I've seen her hurtin'. That bit of mind she took from you took root in 'er. It's maybe splittin' her personality. And...this'll be hard to dig, Carol, but go with me a ways on it...I think it's that bit of you that's in her that's turned her around to our side."

She had to put her fork down on her plate before she dropped it.

Corsair worked his tongue in his cheek and, wisely, said nothing.

"It's nothin' I can prove. But she acts a helluva lot different than when we threw down on her in the Pentagon. So...maybe she really is changin' for the better. If she does, it'll be because that little bit o' Carol Danvers inside of her makes her want to be that way."

"Logan. You know how she got that 'little bit of Carol Danvers', don't you?" Carol's tone was deadly. "She accosted me on the Golden Gate bridge. She attacked me, beat me up, sucked my powers and my mind out of me. Then she threw me off the bridge. She wanted to kill me. If it hadn't been for Spider-Woman coming by, I probably would have hit the water and broken my neck. And if I hadn't broken my neck, I would have hit that near-freezing water, gone into hypothermia, and died, either from that, or drowning or both. And now you expect me to be sympathetic towards her?"

"No, I don't," said Logan. "Not a bit."

"If you take that slimebag murdering bitch into your ranks, then God help you all. Because I won't." Carol sighed, sopped up part of the butter and rice with a roll, and ate it. "For god's sake, Logan. If she'd been an axe murderer, would you take her in just because she made cow-eyes at you and said she was sorry?"

"No," he said. "But the way it is right now, all I can do is sit there and wait. 'N' hope that things keep going right, or that I'm on hand when they go wrong." He paused. "Do you hate me, Carol, for doin' that?"

She shook her head. "No. But between the way things turned out with the Avengers, and the way they're turning out now with the X-Men, I'm beginning to think super-teams have a stupidity clause in them. And I've been with two of them, so that shows you how stupid I am."

Corsair said, "Miss Danvers-are you stupid enough to try for three?"

Carol looked at him.

Major Summers wasn't joking. Logan, who had talked with him beforehand, sat back and ate, while Corsair made his pitch.

"I'm serious," said Corsair. "Logan has told me that he heard from the others you were contemplating leaving Earth for a time. This is correct?"

She nodded.

"But the universe is a big place, Carol. Bigger than even a woman with your powers would imagine. It helps to have a group of people around you who know the ropes, or at least know more than you do at present. And most of the time, we don't come anywhere near Earth."

Carol said, "Keep talking," and finished the rest of her dinner while he was doing so.

"The Starjammers are a good unit, maybe the best. But we've got a different mission than just freebooting for the present. Princess Lilandra has asked us to help her free the Shi'ar Empire from the domination of her sister, Deathbird. Remember her?"

"Oh, yes," said Carol. She thought, Wonder what it'd be like to take her on now, with Binary power?

"We'd also be battling the Brood from time to time. I don't think you have any more cause to love them than you do Rogue."

"You've talked to the others about this?" asked Carol. "To Ch'od, and Hepzibah, and Raza?"

Corsair said, "I have, and to Princess Lil and Cr'reee as well. They'd all welcome you gladly. It's going to be rough, at least as rough as you've ever had it. Hell, we're fighting a war, and that's all there is to it. But we all want you, Carol. There's a place for you waiting with the Starjammers-and a lot of universe to see out there."

For a few seconds, there was no talk.

Then Carol said, "Will you give me a couple of days to get things squared away here? My money, my stuff, and everything?"

Smiling, Corsair said, "Of course, Carol. Welcome to the Starjammers." He gave her his hand. Carol shook it.

"Gonna be sad to see you go, hon'," said Logan. "But I think it's for the best."

"No use in carrying that stuff in the truck up to my apartment," she said. "Let me phone my folks and see if we can bring it over to their place tonight."

Logan said, "We ain't got time left tonight to drive to Boston, fa' cryin out loud."

"Who's gonna drive? You get in and I'll fly you."

-C-

Before they went, Carol hooked up her computer to check her e-mail, got her recent messages, and saw one in Ms. Marvel's long unused box. It was an automatic invitation to an annual poker party at Avengers Mansion with the usual suspects: the Thing, Nick Fury, Wonder Man, and D.A. Blake Tower. After she read it, she showed it to Logan.

"You wanna go?" he said, lighting another cigar.

"I'm not sure," she said.

"There's a few people there you won't be seein' again soon, includin' Nick."

She looked at him. "Would you like to go?"

"You want me around for support troops?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Then I'll go."

So after Binary flew the two of them and the U-Haul truck to Boston, making for an interesting radar blip on some air controllers' screens, and she changed into Carol Danvers and said hello to her folks again and introduced Logan as an old friend and Corsair as "Major Summers, her new employer" (which made Joe sure that, admit it or not, Carol was working for the Company again), and they unloaded part of the stuff in the Danvers's house and the rest in a storage facility in town, and Carol slept in her old bed again and Logan and Major Summers shared a hotel room in town, Summers went back with the truck to Westchester County and dropped them off at Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, right in front of Avengers Mansion.

The tradition was for everyone except the players, and Jarvis, to be absent from the Mansion that night. Carol was glad it was observed. She would have liked to see Wanda, though.

Jarvis, the butler, met them at the door with a great deal of surprise. She threw her arms around him in a big hug. After all, he hadn't had anything to do with the Marcus affair.

"I must confess," he spluttered, "after the way you and the Avengers parted, I hardly expected to see you again, especially here."

"Time, as they say, heals all wounds," she lied. "Besides, I missed the game."

She introduced Logan and the three of them went down the hall to the dining room. Nick Fury was there, and her warmth matched his surprise. It was great to see the Thing again, and she wondered what her reaction would be to the Beast, he who wanted to be Marcus's "stuffed toy", or to Wonder Man.

She didn't forget what she had gone through. But she chose not to sustain the hate.

The Thing hadn't known her as Carol, so she revealed that she had once been Ms. Marvel. Nick got a double surprise when he saw Logan. They were grabbing hands within seconds. "It's been years," said Fury. "When was the last time?"

"Vladivostok," said Logan. "Just before you got tapped to take over SHIELD."

"Hell, it's Old Home Week and a half," said Fury. "C'mon, you two, siddown and get dealt in. If this keeps up, Reb friggin' Ralston's gonna be the next one to come through that damn door. Then you'll really see some poker."

So they played, and Carol took them for all they were worth again, raking up the chips with a full house, aces high, for the last hand.

The Beast didn't mind. It took him awhile to get secure with Carol, and she wasn't as chummy as he'd hoped she would be. But at least she didn't seem to hate him, and that was all right for now. Wonder Man was courteous to her, if not warm. And the Thing said, "What was that you wuz sayin' about Reb Ralston, Colonel?"

Fury said, "I think it'd take him and Gabe to beat Blondie here...and I ain't makin' an on-record statement of that!"

Then a late arrival arrived, in a beam of light.

She was a black woman in a black-and-white costume, and, when she chose to, she was composed of light. The Thing introduced her as the latest Avenger to the three, Nick, Logan, and Carol, who hadn't met her. "Carol Danvers, meet Captain Marvel."

Carol dropped her jaw, and then asked if Mar-Vell had retired, or suddenly gotten a new look? She meant it as a joke.

It wasn't taken as such.

"Carol, didn't you know?" asked Nick Fury.

"Know what, Nicholas?" she responded.

"Mar-Vell's dead."

"What? When?"

"A few months back," said Nick, waiting for her questions stoically.

"How?" blurted Carol. "Accident? Murder? Who killed him, the Kree Supreme Intelligence? Tell me!"

Fury sighed. "It wasn't like that at all. He had cancer."

That was when Carol knew, her shoulders slumping, that for her, the Book of Job was not yet finished.

The Thing explained that everybody from Reed Richards on down had worked overtime for a cure. None was found. Mar-Vell had died, with almost every Earth hero he had known, and many he hadn't, at his bedside.

The new Captain Marvel had tried to apologize. "I know how you must feel," she said.

"Lady," said Carol, "you know nothing."

In an instant, she powered up, and an astonished group of heroes saw her transform into a fiery, red-and-white-clad fury.

Then Binary blasted through the roof of Avengers Mansion and was gone.

-C-

She called the X-Men, as little as she liked it, and learned from them the location of the world where Mar-Vell had breathed his last. Then she went there, and saw his memorial stone, and embraced it.

She thought of the alien who had been a friend to her, who had enabled her to become a super-hero through a genetic gift. She wondered if, somehow, a transplant of genes or blood from her body to his could have saved him.

Probably not. The cancer was too far into him. But at least she would have tried.

She looked up, and, through a few tears, saw the stars.

And she realized that that was where she wanted to be.

-C-

A day later, Logan found Carol, in her Binary costume but in human form, on the beach at Boston where she liked to go. There was nobody there but the two of them, and they talked about Captain Mar-Vell, and about Rogue, and about lost memories and emotions, and about themselves.

In the end, Logan had kissed her farewell, and said, "I'll miss you, darlin'."

Then she powered up, soared off, and didn't stop till she reached the Starjammers' spacecraft, orbiting the Earth.

Binary stepped through the airlock door. Corsair was waiting there for her, with Ch'od, Cr'reee, Hepzibah, Raza, glasses, and a magnum of champagne.

"Welcome home," he said.

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

** Ms. Marvel / Warbird:**  
** A Prize For Three Empires**

by DarkMark

Part 7

The Starjammers' ship stayed in orbit long enough for Major Summers and Carol to attend the wedding of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor. After being introduced to Corsair's parents, Philip and Deborah, she went to sit beside Logan. She had learned that Logan had almost wed Lady Mariko Yashida in Japan, but that she had spurned him at the altar.

Carol wanted to feel sorry for him, but just didn't have enough capacity for it after learning of Mar-Vell's death. She also wondered if he would try hitting on her, or even if she would try the same on him. But Logan was too much of a gentleman for that, and, at any rate, was hurting too much after Mariko's rejection. She accepted that what they had was in the past, and cherished it as a memory.

She was also glad Xavier had forged an emotional / sensual link to it.

But she didn't miss the grim expression on Logan's face as Scott and Maddy exchanged their vows and kissed. She sneaked a hand over his and squeezed it gently, and hoped he took it as friendship and support. He appeared to, and squeezed back, briefly.

Then, after the reception and the farewell to the newlyweds, Carol said her goodbyes to Logan, who had been a friend for so long. But she avoided the other X-Men, and she and Rogue kept as much of the church between them as they could.

Xavier insisted on wheeling up and saying goodbye to Carol personally. She regarded him coolly.

"Well, Carol," he said, "I am pleased that you made the wedding. I also regret that our therapy-and our association-must be terminated at such a point."

"Thanks for everything you've done to help me," said Carol. "I am grateful for what you've done for my mind, Charles. It's just that I can't see why you're accepting the woman who took my mind away from me."

He paused, resignedly. "Perhaps it is because I see something of you in her. At any rate, Carol, I-am sorry-if my decision has made your road a bit harder. But God knows you've come through enough already. I pray your path is a little smoother after this. I still count you as a friend." Xavier extended his hand.

Carol took it, with a slight sigh. "If getting beaten up, raped, mind-raped, tortured by aliens, and ratted on by two super-groups counts as a hard road, Charles, then anything should be smooth compared to that. But I'm finally gonna get to do what I wanted to do, head into space, even if I have to fight a war doing it. And yeah, you're still a friend. But-"

"But what, Carol?"

"Read my mind, Charles."

She couldn't tell whether he had or not. But he looked a bit more resolute, so she assumed he had. "Very well, Carol. Someday, I hope the X-Men...I hope that I...can make it up to you. Goodbye, and Godspeed."

Carol let go of his hand and left with Corsair. Kitty came up to Xavier and asked, "What was she thinking, Professor? If it's okay to ask."

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked away and said, "She was thinking she couldn't trust me."

-C-

So Carol began her stint with the Starjammers, learning how the ship was run, learning about her new teammates, meeting Waldo, the sentient voice of their ship, and getting to know about the Shi'ar Empire from her fellow new 'Jammer, Princess Lilandra, even as they fought it.

For over nine months they played Star Wars for keeps, bringing down Brood and Shi'ar vessels.

Then Professor X himself got wounded in battle, during the trial of Magneto, and only medtech far in advance of Earth's could save him. The passage was dangerous, and the ship took some hits. Corsair and Lil went Terraside, collected him, and beamed back up to the ship with him. Until he mended, he would be their unofficial ninth 'Jammer.

Then they found that he'd be staying with them a lot longer. Their ship's efficiency was down  
quite considerably from the hits, and they had no way to return Xavier now that the Shi'ar treatments had healed him. Unable to teleport him back, unable to get through the heavily guarded warp network, and stalked by Deathbird's legions, Corsair broke the news to him. "I'm sorry, Charles," he said, "but there's no way we can take you home. Not now, maybe not ever."

So Xavier bucked up, nodded in assent, and put his arm around Lilandra. There were worse ways to spend an exile.

Carol wished she had been easier on him at their parting. Then she learned that Magneto had been tapped to lead the X-Men. She decided maybe she hadn't been hard enough.

Raza Longknife griped that, with three Earthers on board now, they were becoming too Terracentric. But Xavier was Lil's lover, and got along fine with the Starjammers, so Raza didn't gripe much.

A day after Xavier was out of danger, he had Lilandra wheel him to the ship's mess and asked Carol to meet them there for a private consultation. So she stepped in, wearing her red-and-white uniform and in human state, and was very, very wary.

"Well, Carol," he said, "Fate has thrown us together again."

"That Fate, he's a real big kidder," said Carol. "Okay, Charles, what do you want to talk about?"

Lilandra sat beside Xavier on a long padded seat under a holo of the starscape outside and saved her words for later.

For his part, Xavier interlaced his fingers, dropped his hands in his lap, and began his shpiel.

"You thought that I was wrong to take in Rogue, Carol. In that, you weren't alone. As you know, most of the team wanted to walk out on me when I announced my decision to take her in."

"Yeah," said Carol. "Until you rah-rahed 'em into doing what you wanted. Again."

"Carol, please," said Lil, leaning forward. "Charles was only doing what he thought best at the time."

"For who?"

Xavier said, "For the team, for mutants everywhere, and, perhaps, for Rogue herself. She's working out, Carol, and you are the reason why."

Binary shifted back on the plush of the seat. It gauged her weight and frame and subtly altered itself to provide the most comfort possible. She gave him a keep-talking gesture, but said nothing.

"There are two factors motivating Rogue to change her former ways. One, as you may have guessed, is guilt. She has come to believe, no, to realize, that she did you a great wrong, and her penance for it is fighting for justice alongside the X-Men. The second is this: the memories she has stolen from you are greatly influencing her own personality...that, to an astonishing degree. In a way you cannot conceive, Carol, she carries within her the ghost of the old Carol Danvers. It sometimes tortures her-"

"I feel better already," murmured Carol.

"-But it also tries to make her a woman as good as Carol Danvers was, and, perhaps, as good as you are. I think that soon, Rogue may suffer split personality and dissonance. That will be a most dangerous thing, given her power. But for the moment, and for the near future, Rogue has become a heroine. All because of the gift you gave her."

Carol shook her head in disbelief. "You still don't get it, do you, Charles? She tried to kill me. She stole my mind. If a crook beats me up in my house, takes everything I have, leaves me for dead, and then reads a Bible he stole from me and becomes a good Christian afterward, it still doesn't change the fact that I got beaten up and robbed."

Lil said, "But what if this thief does great and good things, Ca-Rol, and is known far and wide as a saint, all because of the holy book which he took from you? Is it not possible, in your system of belief, that your God may have used you as a vessel for his repentance?"

"Lil, I've been used as a vessel so long that I ought to have a Mogen David label on my front," snapped Carol. "Do not expect me to empathize with Rogue. Now Magneto's in charge of your boys back home, Charles. How long is that going to last? When does he stop being a nice guy, and probably take her with him? What you've done is the equivalent of giving a grand tour of the NORAD mountain to the Commies."

Charles sighed. "All right. All right, Carol. Would it be worth telling you about a dream I once had, a dream which might still be viable, with a lot of luck and perhaps unbelievable effort?"

She crossed her legs. "Nobody's stopping you, Charles."

"I used to have a dream-and, to a large extent, I still do-of a world in which there were no evil mutants, or 'good' mutants. Just mutants, working side by side for the common good, standing together in an alliance among themselves, and with humanity. Even in the early days, when there were only five X-Men and myself, I never stopped trying to negotiate with Magnus. But it seemed impossible. He was wedded to his vision of a totalitarian mutant state. That, he said, would be strong enough to withstand the forces of homo sapientes. He thought it was the only thing worth fighting for.

"Then, just recently, he saw what he stood to lose. He almost killed Kitty. A fourteen-year-old girl. When Ororo caught up to them, he was holding her gently to his chest, apologizing to her, cuddling her as if he were the daughter he lost so long ago, though she was unconscious and could not hear him. He admitted he had been wrong, and told Ororo that if she wished to kill him-and, a short time before, he had been trying to kill her-he would not resist.

"She could have killed him. Perhaps, with a bolt of mental force, I could have killed him. But I probed his mind as best I could, found out that his statements were sincere, and relented. Magneto had his epiphany. If I could turn him to our side, I would. And so, apparently, I have.

"There was a time in which the X-Men, my original five students, came to rescue me and the Banshee when both of us were captive of a group called Factor Three. This group was composed of five 'evil mutants' directed by a being who called himself the 'Mutant-Master'. But when the Mutant-Master was revealed as an alien, intent on conquering the human race, all of us united against him, and brought him down. On that day, Unus, the Blob, the Vanisher, and Mastermind fought side by side with the Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, the Angel, Marvel Girl, the Banshee, and myself. I told my students afterward that we must always remember that day, when there were no evil mutants, nor good mutants, just a desperate handful of men united against a common foe-and triumphing."

Carol didn't say anything.

"A short time after that, the fifth of the Factor Three mutants, one named Changeling, came to me and offered his services. He had cancer. He didn't have long to live. So, he asked me if he could do something of worth before he died. I told him yes, that he could be my stand-in while I worked on a plan to repel an alien invasion I foresaw in the near future. He had chameleon powers, and transformed himself into my duplicate. I endowed him with some of my mental abilities, and he, for all intents and purposes, became Professor X-and when he died, at Grotesk's hands, my students mourned him as myself."

And you didn't tell them he wasn't, thought Carol. Not for months.

"The point of this, Carol, is that I have trusted such persons, when they have shown themselves worthy of trust. I have not always been correct-the Blob and his allies returned to crime-but in several important cases, my trust was justified. If I have the chance to turn a brother gone astray towards the light, if I may use religious terms here, then I will take it. And we shall see whether I have acted well, or unwisely. But I have acted wisely, at times. In the cases of Magneto and Rogue, though we disagree on this, I believe I have acted wisely again.

"Coexistence of my kind with humanity is becoming more difficult, Carol. You know that. The existence of antihuman mutants is another goad to convince our enemies that they are right to hate us. We can fight enemy mutants, and we do. But if we can change them, reform them, turn them to the path of good, Carol...then, despite the pain you have suffered at Rogue's hands, and the pain I and my students have suffered at Magneto's, is this not a worthwhile goal?"

Sitting on one leg and dangling the other off the edge of the seat, Carol said, "Only if you reach it, Charles. Those are two very dangerous players you've let onto your team."

"They are," he agreed.

She tented her fingers. "So. What's the point of all this? I still question the hell out of your judgment. You know that. What do you want from me?"

Charles was about to speak, but Lilandra beat him to it.

"He wants you to be his friend," she said. "And I want you to keep being mine, Ca-Rol. We are still in grave jeopardy. The ship is equipped for relatively short-range travel, and life-support. You can charge our batteries, but you cannot conjure up components we do not have.

"It is imperative that we remain a team. But it is our desire that you be a friend, as well as an ally." Lilandra paused. "I am your friend, Ca-Rol. Will you be mine? And Charles's?"

Carol rubbed her brow for several seconds, in contemplation. None of the three broke the silence. Not until Carol said, "Yes, for cripes' sake. But if you try treating me like one of your students, Charles...I'm gonna see how fast your new legs can run when I singe the seat of your pants."

"Thank you, Carol," he said. "Thank you. I have a gift that I'd like to tender, if I might?"

"What? I'm kind of low on Chanel, if you've got any of that."

"No," said Xavier. "I thought that we might continue your therapy sessions. Would that be all right with you? Do you...trust me that far?"

She rested her elbows on her knees and her jaw in her hands.

"Dunno," she said. "But it's worth a try."

-C-

For the next few months their lives consisted of trying to stay out of the Empire's hands, fighting them off when they couldn't, and trying to get repair parts for the ship. In the battles, Carol unleashed her Binary powers to the fullest, reveled in them, and tried to disable enemy craft rather than send them to Kingdom Come. Unless, of course, they were Brood, in which case she went after them with gusto.

Through all that, during what down time they had, Carol submitted herself to Xavier's probing and, step by step, one memory at a time, progress was made. But the human mind is one of the most complex things in the universe, and there was only so much he could do at a time, or in toto.

Nonetheless, it helped her.

At another time, in which many of the crew were abed, Carol wandered into the mess again and found one other there, sitting at a table with a jug of something potent. Raza Longknife looked up at her.

"Could not sleep," he said, not unpleasantly.

"Guess that makes two of us," she answered, and sat down.

Before the others were up, both of them had exchanged stories. He told of how he had been apprenticed to a smuggler when he was a youth. He also told of how he had had a wife, who had died some years back, of how he had lost an eye and an arm, and of how he became a Starjammer.

It took more than one night session to learn all these things-she still thought of the crew's downtime as "night"-but Raza talked as he was minded to talk, and she kept more rendezvous with him in the mess. They didn't get as far as loving, but the Earthwoman and the alien found they could talk to one another, and listen as well. So Raza and Binary became friends, and both wondered if, sometime, they might be more than friends. But neither yet broached that topic.

And life and swashbuckling went on.

Once, Colossus's little sister, now called Magik and hanging with the New Mutants, was teleported onto a planet's slave auction block. It was a planet on which the 'Jammers were landed, trying to do a parts deal. The Starjammers ended up having to save all the team of young mutants from hazards in two parallel universes, a concept that boggled Carol's mind, even though she participated fully in the adventure. Xavier's mind-reading powers helped keep them a step ahead of their pursuers in that incident. At the end of it, he was forced to stay with the Starjammers to save their lives, while the New Mutants were teleported back to Earth. Carol didn't like the idea of children so young being endangered, even if they were mutants. She liked it even less when she learned that one of their number had already died.

Then came the incident in which the 'Jammers undertook a quest for a power object called Phalkon, which turned out to be the Phoenix Force, now locked within a woman mutant who was the second Phoenix. Deathbird and her Shi'ar troops wanted control of the Phoenix, and almost got it, and her sister Lilandra as well. The battle allied the Starjammers with X-Factor and Excalibur, two other outgrowth groups derived from the X-Men, and pitted them all against Deathbird, the Shi'ar, and the Imperial Guard. One of those super-powered Guardsmen was an energy-wielder called Zenith. Binary engaged him in battle, and killed him.

She did not know that Zenith had been Raza Longknife's brother.

Nonetheless, the Starjammers had been victorious in that battle, had saved Lilandra and Phoenix, and had even liberated a world from Shi'ar control. During that adventure, Binary began to realize that her powers were on a level far above that of her teammates, and began to wonder whether or not the 'Jammers were "holding her back" in some way.

Corsair read her attitude correctly, and became concerned. But, for the moment, he said little.

And Raza Longknife ended their "nighttime" meetings. He would not tell Carol why, and that hurt her. But they continued to work together, even though Raza wondered when the sad day would come in which honor would force him to repay Binary in kind for his brother's blood.

He decided to put that off for as long as he could. Raza did not hate her, but was very sick at heart, and channeled the hurt into his warring with Deathbird's legions.

So Carol kept company more with Ch'od and Corsair and sometimes with Hepzibah, who was almost as enigmatic as Raza. Life went on.

Eventually, the ship was repaired, and the Starjammers were once again thrown into conjunction with the X-Men after Deathbird captured the mutant band. Carol wasn't present for that battle, but the teams united against Deathbird, the Imperial Guard, and the Skrulls. In the wake of that episode, Charles Xavier went back to Earth with Lilandra. Binary rejoined the 'Jammers, and they soon found themselves involved in the most cosmos-shaking event she had ever experienced.

Lilandra regained control of her empire. This set off the cosmic turf battle between the Shi'ar and the Kree, which became known to the Earthers who were involved in it as, God help them, "Operation Intergalactic Storm." The Starjammers were called into service to help deliver a bomb to a teleportation gate, a Stargate, which would deliver it to a place in which it could be, if necessary, employed against the Kree.

The bomb was a Nega-Bomb...an explosive device utilizing anti-matter. If detonated, it could destroy not only the Kree's homeworld, but a large part of their core empire planets throughout the Magellanic Cloud. It was, she assured Corsair, only meant as a safeguard against Kree incursion. She was certain she would not have to employ it.

Corsair didn't fully buy it. But, reluctantly, the Starjammers agreed to help deliver it.

Carol was glad she wasn't on duty with the team, when she heard of it.

As Binary, she found herself on detached service, encountering Quasar, another Earth hero. He, too, had been an Avenger (she was beginning to think that every hero who wasn't an X-Man had been), and his blue-and-red costume with its star insignia was too close to Mar-Vell's for her liking. She spearheaded a team of Shi'ar heroes who took him on and defeated him in battle, keeping him from interfering with Lilandra's plans. Quasar and some of her unit teleported away in the midst of the fight, and she figured that was the end of it.

In short order, she found out she was utterly wrong.

A Skrull craft had captured the Nega-Bomb and had warped through a Stargate perilously close to Earth's sun. As a side effect, it created pockets of negative matter which threatened to destroy Sol entirely. Carol was unaware of this. She did, however, receive a transmission from Princess Lil, asking her to retrieve the Nega-Bomb. Binary said, "Thanks a lot," and broke contact, grimly preparing to obey.

So, she reflected, the Skrulls were in on this Kree / Shi'ar turf war, too. It was only to be expected that they'd get their hand into something of this magnitude, especially when they'd been battling the Kree for thousands of years. She had no problem with fighting those green metamorphs, anyway.

As she pushed off of sheer space to pursue the craft, she found someone in her path.

It was a beautiful gold-skinned, blonde-haired woman in a red outfit with gold boots, belt, and wrist-bands.

Binary figured she was another Kree operative, or something. She changed course, certain she could speed past her.

Unfortunately, the golden woman was as quick as Carol, and about as powerful. She grabbed Binary's wrists and telepathed, I am afraid I cannot let you do that.

Oh, great, thought Carol. Another interplanetary fruit-loop female warrior. If your hands aren't off my wrists by the count of three, I'm going to burn you, sent Carol, figuring her foe could pick up her thoughts. Badly.

The woman let go of Carol's left wrist, drew back her fist, and smacked Binary in the jaw.

Carol was surprised to find herself flying backwards. And actually hurting.

But she righted herself within seconds, and was glad for the chance to have somebody she could really open up on. Especially a female.

Binary charged in, blasting and slugging. Her opponent did the same. They grappled in dead space while the ship hauling the Nega-Bomb got further away. Whoever this woman was, she was a worthy opponent, and more than human.

For a second, Carol flashed on how casually she had adapted to this spacefaring scene. Not many years ago, she had been an Earthbound, nonpowered, normal woman, looking up at the stars and wondering what it would be like to travel out there. Now, as a matter of course, she treated space as a battlefield.

The gold woman gave her a smart clout on the cheek. Carol snapped back to reality and prepared to give her a white-hole haymaker.

That was when she saw a gold partition form in space between them, which quickly became a padded barrier, like a mattress.

Both she and her foe turned to see Quasar heading towards them, clad in a golden aura to protect him from the void. He looked put-out, and he sent them a message on a communications band they could both receive.

"What's the story here, Binary? Tell me the truth or I'll bubble you up again."

Carol snapped, "I was going after the Nega-Bomb. Empress Lilandra sent me to retrieve it. Then this orange bimbo tackled me as I was about to enter the Shi'ar Stargate."

"Who are you calling a bimbo?" raged her opponent, and raised a fist to strike again.

"Chill out, Her," commanded Quasar. "The bomb isn't here anymore, Binary. It went through the other Stargate."

"And you didn't stop it?" asked Carol.

"I had something more important to worry about-Earth's sun is in its death throes."

"What?"

"Go on," said Quasar. "Be my guest. Go prevent the Skrulls from detonating the Nega-Bomb. If-I mean when-I solve the problem here, I'll join you. Come here, Her." The gold woman flew to Quasar's side, and both of them phased through the Stargate, headed for Sol.

Carol stood there, as much as anyone can stand in space, for a very short time. She weighed the sun, and the Nega-Bomb, in the scale of her conscience.

When you added Joe and Marie Danvers to the equation, it tipped the scales even more nicely.

She streaked off through the Stargate and was teleported to the proximity space around Sol. Before her was the gold woman Quasar had called Her, and some odd floating being that looked like a tree stump with a girl's face embedded in it.

"Where's Quasar?" demanded Binary.

The tree stump answered. "The sun," it said.

"Duh," replied Carol, and blasted away for the star in question.

She exerted her white-hole power to an incredible degree, attuning herself to the rhythms of Sol before her, and found herself able to mentally image it as if she were giving the star a cat scan. There were pockets of anti-matter within it, growing malignantly like cancers. If not excised, they would destroy the sun within a terribly short time.

She also sensed Quasar within it, shielded by his Kree nega-bands, having opened a warp into quantum space. The Avenger was trying to gather the contramatter and push it through the warp, leaving the sun cleansed. But he just didn't have the power. Not quite.

Binary drew upon the power of thousands of such stars, becoming the nexus of a solar network, a receiving set for their great transmissions. It was power beyond imagining. She struggled to keep her body corporeal, to keep her psyche and physical self from overloading and disintegrating. It had to be done.

The sun's light at this distance had never been measured in foot-candles. She was a bit busy to worry about such things now. She knew that its surface, the photosphere, was over 200 miles thick and was around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But Quasar was below that, in the convection zone, where the temperature reached 2,000,000 degrees and its density was only one tenth that of water.

She knew these things academically. Now, blazing like a sun goddess herself, she knew them physically, diving into the sun as if leaping off a high board into a deep-ended swimming pool.

Sight was useless here. She sensed heat, light, radiation, electromagnetism, gravity, all the other factors.

She was within the sun.

She recalled, for a second, her pride and jealousy when Neil Armstrong had left a footprint on the Moon. No camera could or would record her topping of that feat. Well, what the hell, Quasar got there first, anyway.

She reached out with her transmitted power, stretching the white hole from which she took her power to its highest limits.

Quasar, at the center of a small vortex, suddenly perceived a much greater vortex, and registered the being responsible, even though he knew not who it was.

Binary felt pain.

Anti-matter was spiraling from out of the sun's convection and radiation zones (Carol thanked God it hadn't gotten into the core yet) and was coruscating through the aperture into quantum space, where it would lie harmless. The pain increased, and Carol wondered how long she could endure, and knew that she had no choice but to do so.

She recalled the tales the Avengers had told her of their great triumphs in days past. How Rick Jones had been empowered by the Supreme Intelligence to freeze armadas of Kree and Skrull ships in their tracks. How the Scarlet Witch had saved the world from Dormammu's dominion by unleashing a hex that converted him into energy, rammed him through Loki's being, and drove the Norse god mad. How, when Thanos had converted himself into the very being of the universe, the first Captain Marvel had smashed the Cosmic Cube from which he drew his power and rendered him mortal again. How that same Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, who died in the process, had saved Earth from destruction by Thanos, and turned the villain into a stone statue.

Thanos had intended to destroy this very star surrounding her.

She clenched her teeth and exerted more power.

And finally...

...finally...

...it was over.

How it was that she was still conscious, if only just barely, she knew not. But she knew two other things. One was that she didn't have strength enough to close the white hole through which she had pushed the last of the anti-matter, but that it would close of its own accord when she lost consciousness and was consumed. That would not, she guessed, be more than a minute away.

The other was that Quasar had taken hold of her, and was covering her in a protective aura.

Somehow, she sensed that he was rocketing the both of them out of the sun's embrace. He may even have been drawing upon her own power to do it.

As she lost consciousness, and as the white hole closed, she wondered who she would see in Heaven.

It turned out to be Jarvis.

He, Quasar, and a blonde doctor were looking down on her. "Mistress Carol?" said the butler, in his borrowed English accent. "Mistress Carol, are you awake?"

"Yes," she said, with a tremendous effort.

"The sun is safe, Mistress Carol," he said. Jarvis drew Quasar closer to her. "Master Quasar saved you, in turn."

"Good," she said.

And she closed her eyes and dropped back into a black hole of sleep.

next chapter

(HOME)


	8. Chapter 8

** Ms. Marvel / Warbird:**  
** A Prize For Three Empires**

by DarkMark

Part 8

One morning, Carol Danvers woke up and saw Captain America sitting at her bedside.

"Hi, Carol," said Cap, resplendent in the famed red, white, and blue, his shield propped against the wall of the infirmary room. "I've been waiting a while to talk to you. How do you feel?"

She looked at him. His face registered some pain, some weariness. Cap had been carrying baggage like this ever since the days of World War II, she knew. But his mien and bearing indicated that he'd received a fresh load of horror.

She figured there was a lot she hadn't been told yet about Galactic Storm.

"I'm fine, Cap," she said, evenly. "I'm hungry. Still a little weak. You up for breakfast?"

"I've already eaten. I'll take a little coffee, though." He hesitated. "Got a few things to talk to you about, Carol. You want to eat first?"

"I'll eat. We can talk, but I'm hungry as hell."

Helpfully, Cap pulled the intercom cord by Carol's hospital bed. After a soft chime, the voice of Marilla, their Inhuman cook, was heard. "Good mornin', Little Miss Sun-Saver. What'll ye be eatin' for a first meal? Another one of these unpalatable God-save-us-from-it human breakfasts?"

"Toast, eggs, coffee, sausage, Mar," said Carol. "Coffee for Cap, here. And we both know how well you cook 'human' meals, so quit ribbing me. That's all."

"Indeed all," said Marilla, and rang off.

Captain America searched for words and phrases, and Carol waited on him.

Finally, he said, "I would like to apologize for my-insensitivity-during the Marcus affair. I didn't know you were being manipulated. I did not understand how you felt. I know this is a small sop, Carol, but it's the best I can do at this time. I don't know what else to say."

Carol shook her head. "Cap, Cap. Do you know how stupid that all sounds? Look. I appreciate your apology. But there are things that you can't put back together again. You just leave the wreckage and move on." She sighed. "I've had to do that a lot of times."

"Wreckage," muttered Cap. "Yes, there's been a lot of that."

She said, "I don't hate you, Cap. It's just hard for me to trust you all as fully as I once would have. But if you want to be friends-" She shrugged, and looked away from him. "I just need somebody who won't sell me out. Because there's been an awful lot of that in my life."

Cap looked at her. "Do you really hate the time you spent in the Avengers, Carol?"

"Being in the Avengers, for most of it, was like being a bush-league ballplayer and then being tapped for the majors. Yeah, I liked it. I enjoyed those talks I had with you and Wanda, especially, and I liked being part of the team. That's why what came later hurt so much."

He said, "We didn't know what was going on. But, as you pointed out, we should have. I'm hardly perfect." He hesitated. "As has been recently demonstrated."

"What's going on, Cap? Why did you really come here?"

Cap said, "Let's save that till after breakfast, okay? You can tell me about saving the sun while you're eating."

Marilla turned up with the breakfast shortly afterward, and Carol Danvers told Captain America what it was like to swim in the sun. When she finished the meal, she said, "All right. Tell me what you wanted to talk about."

Cap sipped his coffee and focused on something a long time in the past, something that had happened only a few days ago, and the comparisons between them.

"You're not the only person with wreckage, Carol," he said. "In my personal life, there's been Bucky, Carol, Roscoe, a lot of others. A lot of G.I.'s, American and otherwise. I knew some of their names when they died. Most of them I never knew. But I saw them die. I also caused quite a few deaths, personally, on the other side. I killed a lot of people, Carol. A lot of people."

She said, "You were a soldier, Cap."

"Yes," he said. "We were all soldiers. I do not regret what I did. I regret that I had to do it. But I'm not a hypocrite, Carol. I knew what I was fighting for, and what I was fighting against. Given the situation again, put back there, I would do just what I did, again. Do you understand?"

Carol shifted in the bed. "You're not the only person in this room with blood on his hands, Cap. Or her hands. A long time ago, before I ever put on a funny suit, I was a CIA op. I did what I had to do. One of those things was doing a button woman from the other side. She'd killed 23 of our people, and I was supposed to be number 24. I don't regret shooting her."

"I wouldn't expect you to," said Cap, quietly.

"I threw up after that one," said Carol. "But I waited till I was in private to do it. Colonel Fury watched me, to make sure I wasn't going to wash out. I didn't wash out, Cap. I was a good agent." She paused. "More recently, I was in a war. When I had to, I blew up manned battlecraft in space. I also had to kill one of the Imperial Guard. For some reason, Raza started acting cooler towards me after that. And he's killed more people, probably, than either of us."

"You also saved more people than all three of us have killed," said Cap. "You were the only one of us who could have saved the sun. Even Quasar couldn't do it."

"Thanks," she said. "Where is he, by the way? I wanted to see him again. I haven't seen him since that time I opened my eyes and found myself here, instead of inside the sun."

Cap's jaw tightened. "He's taken a leave of absence. That's part of what I wanted to tell you about, Carol. They haven't told you how Operation Galactic Storm ended. I instructed them not to. I think you're strong enough to hear it, now...and I think I'm able to talk about it."

So he did.

He spoke of how the Nega-Bomb had been detonated in Kree space, destroying their homeworld and many other planets in their system. He told her how 98 percent of the Kree had died, and the percentage that was left living was mutated by the bomb's radiation, boosted past the Kree's former evolutionary dead end. He related how the Shi'ar, ruled once again by Lilandra, had annexed what remained of the Kree and their empire, how a repentant Deathbird had been made regent over the Kree, and how the Skrulls had been involved in the operation as agents provocateur.

All of this he spoke in clipped tones, keeping his emotions in check. All of this Carol heard, in growing horror, and said nothing.

Finally, he told her of the greatest horror, at least in his estimation. It was discovered that the entire war had been manipulated into being by the Kree Supreme Intelligence, that construct of hundreds of thousands of dead Kree leaders, warriors, and intellectuals, all for the purpose of jump-starting Kree evolution. Regardless of the fact that so many billions had had to die in the Nega-Bomb's holocaust. Captain Atlas, one of the Kree's greatest warriors, had committed suicide on learning of the plot, and his partner Dr. Minerva had died with him.

The greatest horror, to Cap, was what followed.

There was dissent among the Avengers as to what should be done with the Supreme Intelligence. Iron Man led a faction which favored destroying the adversary, arguing that he was only a computer construct, not a living being, and that, if allowed to exist, he would undoubtedly plot further horrors to eclipse even the decimation of the Kree. Captain America was the nexus of a group who believed that the Intelligence might be considered a living being, and, as such, should not be killed out of hand but given a trial as a war criminal.

Iron Man's side prevailed. The enemy was sought out by his band and, to the best of their knowledge, destroyed.

"My God," said Carol.

Neither of them held any brief for the Supreme Intelligence. It was Iron Man's actions which awed her.

She knew that the great conflict had pushed him to the edge. But she had not known how he had stepped over.

Finally, Cap said, "I'm thinking of stepping out, Carol. This new age seems to be an age for killers-the Punisher, Wolverine, U.S. Agent. I've only killed one person in recent times. Flag-Smasher manipulated me into it. I didn't like it. I'm not a killer anymore."

Carol sighed. Then she said, "But that's just why they do need you, Cap. To keep them from going down that slope anymore. I don't think we feel the same way about killing...but I won't do it unless there's no other way. I agree, I don't think the Avengers should become killers. You may be the only guy that can make sure they don't."

Cap leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "They weren't killing a man, and they were killing a killer. But I'm more worried that they might come to see this as a solution. Super-villains outnumber super-heroes by at least a 3 / 1 ratio, Carol. But guys like the Punisher never seem to have trouble with repeat offenders."

"Guys like the Punisher end up hunted down as murderers," said Carol. "I don't want that to happen to the Avengers."

He looked at her. "Then you care that much about the team?"

Carol thought before she answered. Then she looked straight at him and said, "Yes. I may not be in love with the Avengers, for what I've gone through...but they mean something. To themselves, and to the whole world. They're important. Maybe as a symbol of what super-heroes can be, and how the public can trust them. Not like they do the X-Men."

Cap said, "I've never understood that. The people trust the Avengers and the Fantastic Four because we got our powers, by and large, from outside sources, in adulthood. The X-Men had their powers since birth, and people are afraid of them. Does waiting twenty years to get powers make that much of a difference?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's like being gay. If I knew any mutants when I was growing up, they stayed in the closet. Cap?"

He looked at her.

"Why the hell is it that everybody wants to talk to me?"

She looked genuinely puzzled. He chuckled.

"Don't know. Maybe you're a good listener. And maybe they like you. I know I do."

"Thanks, Cap." She held out her hand. "I appreciate that."

He shook her hand. Then, still holding it, he asked, "Will you stay with the Avengers? Or are you going back with the Starjammers?"

She said, "I'll be staying with you while I'm recouping. When Corsair and the rest get here, I imagine I'll be leaving with them, if they're staying together after all this. What about you?"

"I haven't decided yet." Then he released her hand, and picked something out of the cuff of his left glove. "But you're going to need this. I had it made up special for you last night." He dropped it on the bedclothes over her lap.

An Avengers ID card. With her picture on it.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome, Carol. Get better for us, okay?"

"I'll certainly try, Cap. And-"

"Yes?"

"If this is the last time we see each other before I go...have a good life, okay?"

"You too, Carol," he said, and kissed her forehead. Then he left.

She reflected that, outside of Iron Man, he hadn't told her who had been in the killer faction.

And she was just as glad he hadn't done that.

Carol looked at the Avengers card, held it between her thumb and forefinger. She knew just what use she'd put it to first.

She reached for the phone, dialed a long-distance number with an "0" first, and said to the operator, "I want this call billed to AV-18872." It was.

A few seconds later, she said, "Hello, Mom?"

-C-

As it turned out, Captain America didn't leave, but he did take a leave of absence, and he and Iron Man tried to mend fences. At Iron Man's urging, he stayed with the group.

The ones left on active duty, Carol noted, were not the Avengers who had participated in the Marcus Immortus incident. The new crew included the Black Knight, Crystal of the Inhumans, Hercules, a brand-new Thor, the Black Widow, and a strangely altered Vision. Of course, Vizh had been one of the Avengers on duty during the Marcus thing, but since then he had been disassembled and put back together by government agents and had lost a large chunk of his emotional empathy. It made her feel for him, and for Wanda, who had ceased being his wife because of it. But her closest bond was with the Black Widow, who had also been a spy in her early days, albeit for the Other Side. Natasha enjoyed Carol's presence, too. And all of them regarded her as a topline heroine for saving Sol.

She was out of bed within a week. Shortly after that, the Widow told her, "We've got a special meeting this afternoon, Carol. Be there."

"Sure," she'd said, looking up from a Clive Cussler novel. "What's it about?"

"Guests," said Natasha. "Wear shoes."

The guests proved to be Crystal's hubby Quicksilver, Cyclops of X-Factor, and Professor Xavier.

Xavier was in some sort of high-tech mobile chair, with Cyke riding shotgun. She guessed that he'd suffered some mishap that had crippled him again. Despite her wariness, she felt sorry for him. They both shook hands with her before the meeting. "I've heard you served well during the Kree / Shi'ar War, Carol," said Charles. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," said Carol, and left it at that.

"Sorry we missed out on the action," offered Cyclops.

She looked at him dully. "You shouldn't be. Believe it."

Quicksilver took his place with the Avengers and Xavier briefed them all. Magneto had turned evil again. Carol looked hard at him when he said that, but he avoided her gaze. The X-Men had just had a major altercation with Magneto, and with a group of mutants called the Acolytes, who virtually worshipped him.

Well, thought Carol, why the hell not? Charles was dumb enough to take him in, why shouldn't they be dumb enough to make him their god?

The Widow noted her sour expression, but didn't press her about it.

There were some survivors among the Acolytes, even more fervent in their devotion to Magneto. Quicksilver was Magneto's son. He had married Crystal, an Inhuman, and fathered a daughter by her, Luna. The babe, Magneto's granddaughter, was human. Merely that, and nothing more.

Quicksilver said that Luna's humanity might be seen by the Acolytes as a blot on Magneto's legend, "an embarrassment that some would like removed."

Cyclops replied, "Pietro, it's a possibility we can't ignore. I'm sorry."

So Quicksilver and Crystal, the latter holding Luna safe in her arms, went off to discuss matters-Carol had heard of the trouble they had endured in their marriage, and of how Quicksilver had once become the Avengers' bitter enemy, but he seemed to be getting his stuff together now-and the meeting had generally broken up. Xavier had rolled over to where Carol was seated.

"At least there is one bright spot to this day," he said, giving away little emotion. "I hear you're fully recovered, Binary."

So it was Binary now, instead of Carol. Well, if that was how he wanted to play it...

"Charles," she said, "there are things you should know about-"

"Lilandra," he said. "I sense her in your thoughts. Come, let us speak in private."

They went to a private room and the first words out of Carol's mouth were, "Stay out of my damned head unless I invite you, Charles."

Smoothly, Xavier said, "I apologize, Carol. Recent events have proven somewhat taxing for me, as you may have noted." He gestured to the mobile-chair which enveloped his body from the waist down.

Despite herself, she softened. "How did it happen?"

"An altercation. With the Shadow King and a being called Legion. Now. What of Lilandra?"

She sat in a chair across from him and told him all that she knew of the Kree / Shi'ar War. She had learned more of it since speaking with Cap. By the end, Xavier was looking grim indeed.

"So, who do you blame the Nega-Bomb on?" said Carol. "The Shi'ar, for having it? The Skrulls, for stealing it and putting it in place? Simon and Vizh, for accidentally setting it off, accidentally killing all those people? Hell, you could probably make a case for blaming the Kree. Especially the Supreme Intelligence." She sighed, and shook her head. "You can blame everyone. That's just as easy as blaming no one."

After a second, Xavier asked, "There is still Kree in your makeup, Carol. Do you hate that part of you that is Kree?"

"Hell, no. The Kree were more victim of this thing than anybody. I might as well hate the part of me that's Irish, or French, or whatever else I've got in my genes." She did a short, bitter laugh. "I think I've even got a little American Indian in me, Charles. Know from what tribe?"

"What?"

"The Cree."

He didn't laugh.

"As for Queen Lil...she's busy running two empires, now. The Shi'ar, and what's left of the Kree, and all their worlds and mineral holdings and such. I have a feeling the Skrulls are going to be making trouble for her any day now. They're probably doing it right now. They're the main competitors, now. Deathbird is viceroy over the Kree worlds, with what's left of that team of Kree heroes to watch over her. That's it, Charles. That's all I know."

After a brief pause, Xavier said, "Thank you, Carol. Once again, congratulations for saving our sun."

She shrugged, and hugged her knees. "She didn't give us any message for you that I know of."

He nodded. "Perhaps it would be best to leave her to her duties, at present. They are-bound to be onerous."

Carol looked at him, and didn't need to read his mind to see his sadness.

"I'm sorry you got your legs injured, Charles."

He nodded. "I've never quite believed that famous quote from Nietsche, the one about whatever that doesn't kill us making us stronger. But at least whatever it is hasn't killed either of us yet, has it, Carol? I suppose, at this point, that's all we can hope for."

She was struck by an urge to hold him, to empathize with his pain, and hope that he would empathize with hers. Despite all that had come between them (or, perhaps, because of it), that was what she wanted to do most of all, at that moment.

But she only sat there, with brimming eyes, and could not speak, and did not move towards him.

Xavier sighed, and said, "Carol," and meant to say something after it.

But that was when they heard a tremendous sound that seemed to come from above them. It sounded, to both of them, like the landing system of a starcraft they had both been upon. One very specific starcraft.

Carol stood up quickly and said, "Think we've got company, Charles."

-C-

The Starjammers had come for a visit, at Raza's and Hepzibah's insistence, and it turned into a horror.

Carol had switched to her Binary costume and joined the other Avengers, and, at first, all were glad to see Corsair and company. Especially Scott, who got into a father-and-son talk with his dad very quickly. Jarvis had whipped up some refreshments for all concerned, and a party of sorts was thrown. She was glad to see the 'Jammers, and they appeared glad to see her.

All but one of their number: Raza. She soon found out what that was all about.

Raza sought out the Black Knight, Dane Whitman, when the latter was alone in the Quinjet hangar, and tried to kill him. Dane, astonished, unleashed his energy-blade and fought back. But Marilla, all unknowing, burst in, holding little Luna to her breast, and Raza grabbed the girl and threatened to kill her. It was a bluff, he admitted later, but he only admitted it after he ran the Knight through with his sword.

Ch'od soon appeared, stood up for his teammate, helped stand off the Avengers, and escaped with Raza into the night. The Avengers and Starjammers-all save Hepzibah-were aghast. Dane's life was saved by Sikorsky and an Inhuman healer from Attilan. Thor, new arrival Sersi, Hercules, and the Vision had tracked down Raza and Ch'od and defeated them. But Binary and Corsair arrived seconds later and halted the fight.

Raza was disarmed, literally-his cybernetic limb had been shattered against the Vision's diamond-hard body-and Carol went to his side. He was in anguish, and looked it, and looked anything but the picture of a hardened killer. So she talked to him, the way she had in all those late-night sessions aboard the Starjammer ship, both of them on their knees in the rain in the middle of a Manhattan alley, with the other heroes standing guard at the alley's mouth.

He told her that he was not worthy of life, and she wouldn't accept that. He asked her to go, and she wouldn't.

Finally, he admitted the truth.

He had fathered a son named Rion, many years ago, who had been taken from him and dragged into the slave pits of D'Ken Neramani, Lilandra's foul brother. Just days ago, a Kree had secretly contacted Raza and Hepzibah, gave to Raza a medallion the 'Jammer had given to his son, long ago, and made a devil's bargain with him. Kill the Black Knight, who had killed the Supreme Intelligence, and his son would be returned to him.

Carol took the medallion from Raza, bade him forgive her, and crushed it in her hand.

Reacting without thought, Raza slammed her against the alley wall and put a knife to her throat. Thor and Hercules whipped in their direction. Binary called out for them to stop. She could melt the knife, anyway, if it came to that.

She hoped.

Carol told Raza that the medallion was a memory implant device, designed by the Kree. The Kree portion of her recognized it, and knew that it was used by the Kree Empire to make subjects more obedient to their iron will. That, she said, was what she was going to tell the Avengers.

After a few seconds, Raza dropped the knife.

He went back to his knees, and if all the wet on his face was not from the rain, few could tell.

Carol went on her knees before him, held him, and said that the Shi'ar slave pits which he had been entrapped in were horrific places indeed. She told him that what the Kree did to him was evil, unforgivable, and irredeemable. She told him, and the Avengers and 'Jammers who were listening, that the Kree, through their memory inducer, were solely responsible for what had happened that night.

She also said that she was a friend, and that the Avengers would listen to her, because she was an Avenger as much as she was a Starjammer. She said she would do anything for those teams. Even die for them.

And in a voice only Raza heard, she said, "Dear Lord, I'd even lie."

Raza said nothing.

After a few seconds, Thor said, "All right, let's go."

On the way to the mansion, nobody made conversation.

-C-

When the small party arrived, they found good news. Dane Whitman had pulled through, and would recover fully, thanks to the combination of Shi'ar and Inhuman medical treatments.

Incredibly enough, Dane even was reconciled to Raza, once he learned of the Kree memory inducer. Raza apologized abjectly, and warned him that the Kree would never forgive the Avengers for what they had done, and especially they would not forgive the Black Knight.

Corsair made an apology on behalf of the group, and convinced the Avengers that the other 'Jammers had had no knowledge of Raza's purpose. The Earth heroes seemed to accept it, though they said little in response.

Finally, it came down to Carol again. Corsair asked if she wanted to return to the Starjammers. The Black Widow offered her the chance to continue as an Avenger. She replied, "Thank you both. But I think it's time Carol Danvers gave up the stars and went home to visit her parents. And rediscover her roots."

"Okay, then," said Natasha. "But it's been great having you. And remember-don't lose that Avengers I.D. card. You never know when it'll get you in a movie."

Carol chuckled.

Corsair stepped closer to her. "Carol, there are no adequate words for such a moment. There will always be a place for you on the Starjammer ship. There will always be room for you among the Starjammers. And, between all of us-there will always be friendship."

He shook her hand. "Thank you, Corsair," she said. And she shook hands with all of the other 'Jammers too, big Ch'od, the now somewhat sinister Hepzibah, little Cr'reee.

Last of all, there was Raza.

He stepped up. She clasped hands with him in a strong grip, both of them grasping each other's wrist, rather than the hand. He did not look up at her for several seconds.

When he finally did, he said, "Carol. There was a matter which-put some distance between us for a time. Suffice it to say-the debt of honor is repaid. No more shall be said. Thank you, my friend."

She said, "Thank you, my friend Raza," and, wisely, said no more.

The Starjammers filed into their shuttlecraft, lifted off from the roof, and soon docked with their orbiting ship. Within minutes after that, they had left Earthspace.

Binary looked after it for a long time.

Only she and Raza, and perhaps Hepzibah, knew that there had been no memory inducer at all. That she had lied, to give Raza an out, and that the lie had been bought, so that he might find his son someday.

She doubted that she would rejoin the Starjammers again.

Like the Avengers and the X-Men before them, they had shown her that super-teams, at best, are little more than dysfunctional families.

(next chapter)

(HOME)


	9. Chapter 9

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**  
** A Prize For Three Empires**  
Part 9  
by DarkMark

Joe and Marie Danvers were used to unexpected visits from their daughter by now. This time, at least, she'd given them a call beforehand and showed up with luggage. Both of them hugged Carol and were very glad that, after her mysterious experiences, she'd returned with no apparent damage. She was still a little hazy on memories, but both of them accepted that by now.

The main thing was that, for a little while, Carol was home.

When they asked, cautiously, about her business, Carol said that she wasn't working with her old crew. But she emphasized that the two gentlemen who had come there and helped her move were still friends. Joe wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. But he didn't press it.

For her part, Carol was glad to be back, helping around the house, going with Joe to work for a couple of days at his construction business, sitting around and reading and, occasionally, writing. Her royalty checks from the books she had already written were routinely deposited in an account which, she was glad to discover, was fairly fat by now. Since she hadn't spent any money while working with the Starjammers, it could hardly help but be.

The Avengers' accountant had been instructed to pay her income taxes and had been given power to do so from her account before she had left. Thus, no problem with Uncle Sam.

Joe had sat down with her one evening and said, "Carol, what's in the cards for you right now? What are you going to do for a living?"

She replied, "I'm going to write, Dad. I'll be gettng an apartment near the City pretty soon, I imagine. Don't want to sponge off you and Mom too much longer."

"You ain't spongin'," Joe said. "We love having ya. Plus, you got enough money that you can live just about anywhere, am I right?"

She nodded.

"I was talkin' more about what you're gonna do for a career. If you can get back to writing, great. You've got enough experiences with, y'know, the Company to probably write five books about 'em."

Carol said, "If I did, they'd have to be fiction, Dad. There's lots of things about the Company you just can't talk about. Unless you're Philip Agee, that is."

Her face darkened. "That book put more people in danger than you can imagine. Messing with the secret stuff that's supposed to remain secret-people can die."

Joe nodded, soberly.

"If I write about the company, and I may do it, it'll be fiction," she said. "And nobody's going to get assassinated because of what I write."

"Except maybe you," said Joe.

Carol shook her head. "No. I've made enemies because of what I've done, not because of what I've written."

"What have you done, Carol?"

She said, "Whatever I had to, Dad. Let's leave it there, okay?"

After a long pause, he said, "Okay."

-C-

Later, Carol was sitting in the kitchen, alone with her mother, who was doing the dishes. "Well, how does it feel to come home after you've saved the universe?" asked Marie, scrubbing the remains of dinner out of a stainless steel pot.

Carol, sitting with her hands clasped between her thighs, said, "It feels great, Mom. It's probably the best part of saving the universe. But let's not talk too loudly, okay? Dad already knows we're talking behind his back."

"So maybe you should talk to him behind my back and equal things up. Tell me exactly what you did, Carol. The papers didn't say a whole lot about what you did specifically."

"That's because the government doesn't want every Joe Schmoe out there to know exactly how endangered the Earth gets sometimes," said Carol, stretching back in the kitchen chair. "Just us super-heroes know, most of the time."

"They say you fought aliens, in some kind of space war," said Marie, plunging the pot into rinsewater. "What were they like?"

Carol said, "I find it kind of incongruous to be sitting in your kitchen and talking about space warfare, Mom. Anyway, I didn't get that involved in the battle aspect of it. I had a fight with some gold floozy in space, we got things straightened out, and then I did the big part of the job."

"Which was?" Marie craned her head to see Carol's face.

"Which was, Mom, something to do with the sun. Let's leave it there, okay?"

Marie turned all the way around, in awe. "You did something with the sun? Baby, how could you do that? I mean, if you go out even without sunblock in the summer, you start peeling."

Carol put one hand to her face and laughed, loudly and long. "Oh, Mom. I love you, you give me such perspective. There I was, running around in space with a crew where me and Corsair were the only two from Earth, here you are, getting the dishes cleaned. I think I'd take your job anyday."

Marie started to undo her apron. "No, that's okay, that's okay, Mom," said Carol. "I'll let you do that stuff, you're so much better than I am at it."

Her mother smiled. "And I guess you're better at saving the universe," she said.

"Just the solar system, Mom. I haven't worked my way up to saving the universe yet."

"Well, I want you to know that I am very proud of you, Carol. Also, that I am very sad that I can't let anyone else know that I've got a daughter who saved the sun, and runs around with the Avengers and all those things." Marie sopped her hands on the apron. "Are you ever going to come back to Earth to stay? For good?"

Carol shook her head. "I don't know. I'm going to stay on-planet for awhile, at least, 'cause I want to write another book. My agent practically jumped through the phone line at me when I called her. I think if she could've faxed herself here, she would've. She said, 'When are you gonna write another book? The publishers've been hollering at me for another book for the past year!' So I told her I'd sit down and write another book, and she asked me what it was going to be about. I told her, 'Fiction. That way, maybe somebody will believe it.'"

Marie stood before her daughter, waiting for the rest of the story.

"But I won't be able to stay here forever, I don't think, Mom. Binary-she's-I'm what the guys in the business call a 'cosmic being'. I tap into the cores of stars for power, for cripes' sake. I can fly at hyperlight speed through space without even a pressure suit. I can't stay away from that forever, Mom. Honestly, I can't even stay away from it for long."

"I had a hunch," said Marie, sadly. "But you will be with us for awhile, won't you?"

"Like I said, Mom, I'm going to write a book. So I'll have to stay here long enough to write it. I plan to keep Earth as a base. But..." She shrugged. "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen the Kree?"

"What are the Kree like?"

"Like us, but they come in blue and pink."

"Oh."

-C-

On another occasion, she assumed her Binary identity again to ally herself with a large number of "cosmic" heroes against some spacefaring villains called the Starblasters. The 'Blasters had kidnapped Uatu, the Watcher, which meant that they were not light on the power scale. She met Hyperion in that case, re-met Quasar, and had to fight a mind-controlled Captain Marvel, the one they called Photon now. She ended up helping several others capsize an engine that was intended to push Earth's moon out of orbit. Since she had saved the sun some months earlier, she figured it was a bookend experience to the earlier one.

Carol had rented herself an apartment in Buffalo and just got set up when the call came. It was from Cyclops. He was asking for help, but not in a battle. Peter Corbeau, her old friend, needed some help in replenishing Starcore's power supply. With some help from her and Bishop (he didn't explain who Bishop was), they could do the job properly inside of a day. He hoped.

"Scott," she said, "you know how my luck runs every time I get involved with your kind of people."

He answered, "Please, Carol. For Corbeau, if not for me. We need that observatory. It's our DEW line against space attack."

"All right," she said. "Dammit."

She hung up and called herself several uncomplimentary names, then worked on her manuscript till the end of the day.

The next morning she drove to Westchester County to the familiar mansion on Greymalkin Lane. It still looked elegant, but her trained eye caught the spots where damaged walls and roofing had been repaired and the lawn resurfaced. It was a miracle that they could keep it in a consistent shape after all the battles that place had seen.

She parked her rented Saab in the driveway and walked to the door. Carol, dressed in a blue vest, white blouse, blue skirt, and white sandals, wondered idly what grouping of mutants would be present. Was Cyke still in X-Factor, or had he come back to the X-Men? Would she get to see some of the New Mutant kids? After their last encounter, she hoped they were still doing all right. God knew superheroing was tough enough on adults.

Cyclops and Beast met her at the door. Well, not quite at it. Hank had yelled, "Carol!", bounded through the open doorway, and leaped over her four separate times from different directions, like a puppy seeing its master after a long abscence. Carol smiled. "Stop showing off, Hank, we know you can jump! But thanks."

The blue-furred mutant touched down in front of her, hugged her with both arms and lifted her off the ground, while she strove to keep a hold on the handle of her grip. "Extremely good to see you, Miss Danvers. I would have composed an operetta on the spot in your honor from my joy, but my brain is so boggled at the moment that all I can remember is a few ditties from H.M.S. Pinafore. Shall I treat you?"

"Put me down, and you shall not!" she screamed, laughing. "Hank, Hank, for Pete's sake, everything's fine between us, okay? Okay?"

He looked at her, said, "Okay," and opened his arms. She made a three-point landing.

"Hank, enough clowning," said Cyke, the way he used to do when there were only five of them. "Carol, good to see you, definitely. Come on in, and let me introduce you to our new member."

She picked herself off the grass, the Beast holding her grip out to her by the toes of one foot. (He was standing on his head.) "New member?" she said. "That would be this Bishop, right?"

"That's him," said Scott. She took the suitcase and walked to the door, the Beast cartwheeling beside her.

"Is he a Catholic, or just a great chessplayer?"

"Are you a super-heroine, or a great comedienne?" he replied.

"Point to you," she said, and bussed him on the cheek.

There were only a few of them sitting around the living room, iced tea glasses in hand, in their civvies. A huge black guy sat in a large armchair, facing her as she stepped inside. He stood up, graciously, and extended a hand. "You must be Binary," he said. "My name is Bishop. I am from the future. We will be working together on this operation, I believe."

Carol said, "Thanks, nice to meet you," and extended her hand. As she stepped into the room proper, she saw Jean Grey, all red hair and green clothes, stepping up to give her a hug. "Welcome back, Carol, even though it hasn't been all that long."

"Only a few months," said Carol, hugging Jean with one arm and shaking Bishop's hand with her other. Then both Bishop and Jean felt her stiffen.

She had caught sight of the other person in the room.

Sitting in a rattan chair, in a green and yellow uniform and brown jacket, was the one X-Man she was sure Scott would have had sense enough to leave off of this team.

"Hello, Carol," said Rogue, meekly.

Carol relinquished her hold on Bishop and Jean and, not saying a word, turned and began walking out the door again.

"Carol, wait," said Cyclops. "Let me explain. She's not like she was before, when she-"

"Go to hell, Mr. Summers," said Carol, as she opened the door and walked through it.

She hadn't gotten five paces outside it when a roar of energy flooded past her, landed in front of her, and resolved itself into a human form. Jean Grey, the Phoenix, was blocking her way. "Carol, please hear us out," she said.

"I heard you out when Xavier took that bitch on this team," she said. "I heard enough then. I thought that you would have enough brains to, of all people, keep her off anything I was involved in-"

"We need her, Carol, she's part of the team!" Jean was blocking her way to the car. "We need you both. Please, just calm down and let me talk to you for five minutes."

"No." Carol stepped forward.

Jean turned into Phoenix, and still stood between her and the car.

Carol set her suitcase down, and, in a burst of flame, became Binary.

"You really want to match powers?" said Carol, softly. "If you do, step away from my car. I don't want it turned into a puddle. It's a rental."

Jean said, "If I tussle around with you awhile, will you agree to hear us out? We need you badly for this operation. Bishop can't generate power, only channel it."

"Channel this," said Carol, and raised her hand, about to knock Phoenix out of the way with a starbolt.

"No, Carol!"

She turned her head.

The others were out of the building already. But Rogue was in the lead, and she was the one who had spoken.

The thief of her powers and memory stood before her as she turned. Rogue wasn't looking belligerent, but she wasn't backing down, either. The others waited, and listened.

"If you've got a hassle with me, take it up with me," said Rogue. "Ah'll admit, Ah'm the problem. But don't take it out on them. And for god's sake, let me try'n explain!"

"Good," said Carol gutterally. "You explain why you beat me almost to death, stole my powers and my memories and damn near my life. Go ahead and explain that, you bitch!"

"Carol," Rogue said, reaching out her hand for her shoulder. Carol knocked it away.

"Don't you touch me," she warned. "Don't you ever dare touch me."

"Dammit, let me talk!" Rogue yelled. "You've been inside of me, driving me crazy! Ah just barely got your memories outta my head a few months ago, but Ah can still remember them. Ah wish the hell Ah'd never touched you in the first place! Ah've even turned into you. Can you believe that?"

Carol looked at her. "You make me sick. Still."

Rogue choked back a mixture of rage, guilt, and a wish for acceptance. "All right, Carol. If it makes you feel better, you just stand there 'n' call me all the names you want. Ah'm pretty sure Ah deserve most of 'em, anyway. Is that what you wanna do?"

"I wanna get the hell out of here," said Carol. She pushed past Phoenix, to the car. "Find yourself another human battery."

Rogue grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, barking her shin with the edge of the suitcase Carol still had in her hand. "Carol, you are gonna sit and listen to me. If'n you feel like you still can't do the mission afterwards, Ah'll drop out. Just listen to me, honey."

"Nobody's dropping out of this mission," affirmed Cyclops. "We need both of you."

"Scott, please," said Rogue.

"Scott, shut up," said Phoenix.

Bishop and Beast elected to say nothing.

Carol said nothing. But she powered down, her Carol clothes and appearance replacing her Binary self and costume. Rogue leaned against the car. "Ah've come a long way since we met, Carol. Since Ah almost killed you. Right now, Ah understand you a lot more'n maybe you understand y'self, 'cause Ah've been totin' your memories around kinda like you been totin' your clothes around in that grip. Only it's more like blood in mah body. See what I'm sayin'?"

"I'll take 'em back," said Carol, sweetly.

"If Ah could, I'd give 'em back. But Ah don't have 'em any more. Not like it was, at least. Not like I was carryin' your ghost around in me, an' it was possessin' me. But Ah can remember all about you from havin' you in me. Ah mean, Ah know about ya, honey. Ah know about your first grade composition. It was about yoah dog, Sparky, remember him? No, no, forget Ah said remember anything."

"I forgot to remember to forget," answered Carol.

"Ah remembered it for ya," Rogue pressed on. "Ah remember how your first party dress looked, all pink 'n' flouncy. An' how y'almost drowned learning how to water-ski the first time. An' how you looked at the first man y'ever loved, and how it was the first time y'made love to him. I know you. We've been very close, all this time."

"The pleasure was all yours," said Carol. "You're leaving a lot out of 'This Is Your Life, Carol Danvers.' Do you remember Lubyanka Prison? I sure as hell hope you do. I tried the rest of my life to forget it."

Rogue nodded, silently.

"How's about when I got raped by Marcus, and had him as a child, and the Avengers thought it was so great? Do you recall that, honey child?"

"Ah do," said Rogue. "It was all kinda jumbled and confused, but the whole thing darn near made me puke when I learned about it."

"Do you remember how I felt when I saw that replay of how Mystique killed Michael Barnett? Do you remember that, darling?"

Rogue said, "Yes, Carol. Ah remember."

"And how many times have you replayed how it felt when we were fighting, and you sucked the powers right out of my body, and my mind with it? How many times do you remember me going unconscious, and getting dropped in San Francisco Bay by you?"

"More times than Ah want to count," said Rogue, looking very sad. "Carol, Ah am sorry. The only good thing came outta that was, it made me turn to the X-Men. Ah've become a lot better person for it. Ah didn't think I could do it at first...didn't think they'd accept me. But they did."

Carol sat with her buttocks against the car door. "They accepted Magneto. Why not you?"

Rogue's eyes flared. Good. A palpable hit.

"Carol, that was out of line," said Cyclops. "You know why we accepted Magneto. For a long time, it worked out."

"And then it didn't, Scott," said Carol. "Did it?"

"No, Carol, it didn't," he said.

Rogue spread her hands, imploringly. "Look. You've had it really hard, Carol, an' nobody knows that more'n me, right now. Ah mean, Ah've had you inside o' me! Sometimes...sometimes mah whole body's turned into Ms. Marvel." Carol bristled, hearing the name of her long ago, stolen identity. "Ah've had to be Ms. Marvel for days at a stretch. She was in control. Then she morphed outta me, we were separated, and Ah had to fight her, and Ah got cured. Ah was schizophrenic...worse 'n schizo. Carol, you ain't the only one here who's had a hard time, y'know?"

"Oh, I hope not," Carol said, acidly.

Cyclops said, "All right, Carol, sorry to have bothered you. I don't know who we can get to take your place right now. But we'll try to find someone. See you later."

Carol looked at him. "That's it?"

"What did you expect it to be, Carol?" said Jean. "Rogue is a part of the team now. I hate to say it to your face, but she's much more a part of the team than you are."

Bishop said, "Sorry that it did not work out, Ms. Danvers. I think we would have enjoyed working in conjunction."

She nodded. "We might, Bishop. We might have, at that. Sorry." Carol opened the door on the driver's side and tossed her suitcase in.

Rogue took hold of the door on the other side, and gave her a pleading gaze. "Carol, Ah thought that Ah could talk to ya, of all people. Ah've been you for such a long time...and the you inside'a me, she was drivin' me crazy! And when she morphed out of me, she tried t'kill me."

Carol gave her a hard look back. "Good. I wish she had killed you. Like your foster mommy Mystique killed Mike Barnett. Like you tried to do to me."

The next thing Carol felt was a fist in the face.

She was powered back up to Binary status by the time her rear end hit the gravel. Carol wiped a hand across her numbed cheek and right side of her mouth, and felt a bit of blood. For a nanosecond, she realized that if she could punch that hard as Ms. Marvel, she must have been a real scrapper to go against.

Rogue was standing away from the car, in a defensive stance.

Binary pointed beyond her, to her right. "Let's fight that way. I don't want to hurt the car."

"You've got it, sugah," said Rogue, with a grin.

The sun-woman piled into her like a slumming comet.

-C-

Hank McCoy, to his credit, did not say, "Oh, my stars and garters." He simply grabbed Cyclops's arm and said, "Scott, can we trust them? I mean, they aren't going to really..."

"They're not going to kill each other, Hank," said Scott, watching the battle. "And if it comes to that, Jean will separate them."

"You hope Jean will separate them," murmured Hank, not sure how well even a Phoenix would fare against the two of them.

Bishop said, "A curious phenomenon, Scott. And the confirmation of a legend."

Scott jerked his head in Bishop's direction.

"The ancient texts said that superbeings almost always fought to introduce themselves to each other," explained Bishop.

"They got that right," opined Jean.

Rogue had permanently assimilated Carol's Ms. Marvel powers, including the flight and super-strength. Thus, she was able to swoop up and meet Carol's charging down upon her with an upward charge of her own. The two furies met in mid-air, smashed at each other, and began dealing out wallops that the Thing and the Hulk would probably have admired.

Binary could have ended it in a moment with a blast of flaming plasma, if she had desired. But she would not kill Rogue, as much as she hated her. And Rogue refused to leech away Binary's powers. That much she figured she owed Carol.

Outside of that, they felt free to punch, kick, chop, choke, knee, and pull hair with the best of them. They did that with gusto.

Carol fell victim to a perfect judo toss that sent her whipping downward and into a tree in the nearby woods. It hurt, but not as much as it would have had she been in human form. Rogue knew all the martial arts that Carol Danvers had learned in the service and as a spy, plus the considerable knowledge of hand-to-hand combat that Mystique, her foster mother, had taught her. Binary pulled herself away from the tree, met a descending Rogue with an uppercut to her chin, and then tattooed the woman's midriff with her knuckles, glad as hell she had the chance to even accounts.

Rogue slammed a knee into Carol's chin, knocking the fiery-haired heroine backwards. While she had respite, the mutant rasped, "Stop it, Carol! Haven't ya gotten it outta your system yet?"

Binary blasted herself forward with a burst of starfire thrust and rammed her shoulder into Rogue's midsection. The two of them surged forward over acres of land, a good twenty feet above the ground. "Nope," allowed Carol, and angled them down to let Rogue take the impact of their crash.

Before she could get off Rogue, Binary took a savate kick in the chops. She swore and backed away. Rogue leapt to her feet and faced her, side-on, one hand outstretched.

"Nuts to this," Binary snapped, and knocked her off her feet with a low-power plasma burst. Rogue rolled away, got to her feet, and stamped the fire out of her smouldering boots. She looked in Carol's direction, and didn't see her foe where she had been standing.

"Up here, honey," came a voice from above her. It was accompanied by a fireball.

Rogue jumped, and the ball of flame seared a section of green grass to blackness.

The Southern mutant-woman ran zigzagging across the sward, jumping away from Carol's repeated fire-blasts like Daffy Duck dodging buckshot blasts in an old cartoon. "Dance, you varmint!" yelled Binary.

In response, Rogue crouched and launched herself into the sky. A human missle, she intersected Carol's flight-path and knocked them both out of the sky. They tumbled to the ground, landed hard, and rolled.

Both of them rolled down a small incline of land over a rock restraining wall and splashed down into a stream which ran by not far from the school. Rogue ended up on top. It didn't much matter, as she didn't get in a punch before Carol did. Actually, she didn't even seem to try.

Within seconds, Carol had womanhandled Rogue onto the sandy bank of the stream and was engaged in the serious business of clobberation. She didn't know where the X-Men were at the time. All she hoped was that they'd leave her alone long enough to finish changing the bitch's face.

But after the third blow, she hesitated.

Rogue had not answered any of her punches.

Binary sat there, kneeling on Rogue's legs, and held one fist cocked at the ready. The mutant's face was bruised, even bleeding a bit. But she was awake, and aware.

"Go ahead, Carol," said Rogue. "Aren't ya gonna hit me with that big ol' fist? Or are ya gonna just let it hang till all the blood drains down t'your shoulder?"

Binary said, "Give me a good reason. Tell me why I shouldn't do it."

"Don't have to give you no reasons not to hit me," said Rogue, coughing a bit. "You wanna hit me, go right on ahead. Seems like it's pretty good therapy for you."

"Damn you to hell, you soulsucking little bitch," rasped Carol. "Damn your bloody black soul all the way down to hell and New Jersey." She lowered her fist a bit, spread the fingers, made the fist again, and waited.

Rogue looked up at her, and did not smile. "Carol, gotta tell y' something. Y'listening?"

"What do you think?"

"Ah'll tell ya what Ah think, Carol. If it means that much t'you t'kill me, go right on ahead. Won't stop ya. You're just doin' on the outside what'cha been doin' to me on the inside. Maybe..." She sighed. "Maybe that way'd be best."

Carol dropped her hand. "You know I can't do that. Not to...somebody who won't even fight back. Not even to you."

After a moment, Rogue said, "The you inside o'me taught me a lot, Carol. She taught me a lot of things. Like Ah hope Ah don't ever have to learn that way again. Ah mean it, Carol...Ah'm sorry for what Ah did t'you. Ah know that doesn't bring none o'your memories back. Ah know it doesn't bring those powers back. But outside o' the blood from my body...there ain't nothin' else I can give you, but sorry."

Carol swore, and slowly got up. "Shove your sorry," she said. "I just hope someday somebody steals your memories away from you. I hope you get to feel what it's like not to feel any of your memories."

Rogue, getting up to a sitting position, said, "Carol...d'you think that's any harder'n havin' two sets o' memories? An' knowin' one of 'em hates ya so much it wants ta almost kill ya, inside?"

Carol didn't say anything.

"Carol, Ah gotta tell ya something," said Rogue. She moved a bit closer. Carol tensed in wariness. "Darlin', I ain't gonna hurt you," Rogue declared. "But it's somethin' you might wanna know. About me, an'...the you inside of me."

"Like what? My shade of lipstick? My diet secrets?"

"No," said Rogue. "About your brother, Carol. We went by the Vietnam Memorial. We saw where they put his name. We cried, Carol. Both of us."

Carol breathed, deeply but easily. "Do you know that I can't even feel as much about him as I ought to? Do you know I can't even c-"

But she couldn't finish it.

She was already crying. Whether for her brother, or her sorrow at her lack of emotion for him, or herself, or all three, she was crying.

By the time Phoenix jetted up with the other three along, they saw Rogue holding Carol, who was still crying, and not shrinking away from her touch.

Rogue looked up at them. "I think she'll come with us," she said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**

** A Prize For Three Empires**

Part 10

by DarkMark

Carol was never, ever, ever going to be close to Rogue. She was never, a zillion times over, going to forget the terrible thing Rogue had done to her.

Despite all of that, she had made time to talk with Rogue.

It was an opportunity to visit her lost memories. No matter what she thought of the bitch, she didn't want to pass that up. So she and Rogue had talked of what the vampiric mutant remembered of Carol's childhood. Rogue sometimes closed her eyes and tried to remember what Carol's emotions had felt like back then. At times, she succeeded. At times, she was less than successful. Sometimes, she made a halfway-decent job of it.

"Yeah, Ah remember that," Rogue said, sitting crosslegged on her bed while Carol sat in a plastic-and-steel chair, facing the back of it and supporting her head on her crossed arms. "The basket you sunk in the last second...after the buzzer, really. Won that ol' game 89-88. Y'all just about bunny-hopped out of your tennies after that one, didn't ya?"

"I imagine we did," murmured Carol. "God, I remember what happened. Just wish the Prof had hooked me up will all of those feelings...but there's only so much even he could do."

Carol was about to ask for another blast from the past when she noticed the clenching of Rogue's jaw muscles. The woman's body was tense as hell. "Uh, Rogue, that's enough. You don't have to do anymore. Thanks." She kept her voice neutral.

Rogue still sat closed-eyed and cross-legged.

"Rogue, that's enough. Come on, snap out of it."

(What the hell are you doing feeling sorry for her, girl? She's the one who stole everything but a non-controlling interest in your life. You ought to be glad to see her getting the whim-whams...)

(Shut up.)

Carol, despite her better judgment, shook Rogue's shoulders. The girl-mutant's eyes snapped open and she looked confused, frightened. Then she looked at Carol. "Oh, gawd, honey, Ah'm sorry. Ah'm sorry. Ah was scared. Ah-can we put this off till another time, darlin'? Ah'm feelin' like a cat dropped on a hot griddle."

"What happened? You get so far in you forgot your way out?"

"Kinda," said Rogue. She wiped the back of her hand against her brow. "Sometimes it gets like it was when...she was takin me ovah. Ah ain't kiddin' about bein' possessed, Carol. It's a scary, scary thing not t'be in control of your own body."

Carol said nothing. She wasn't sympathetic enough to Rogue to offer comfort openly, but she didn't like the idea of her persona doing a William Peter Blatty number on somebody. Still, Rogue had asked for it.

"Tell me how she died," said Carol.

Rogue sighed. "It was a helluva thing, Carol. A helluva thing. It was just after Ah heard that Mystique and Destiny were-that they were dead."

Carol's eyes widened a bit.

"Don't feel too cheered up," said Rogue, sourly. "Mystique ain't dead, the newsies got that 'un wrong. But Des, she was. Please don't say anything against 'em. T'me, they were family. Please, just for mah sake."

"I'm not saying a thing about them," said Carol.

"It was when we was in that Siege Perilous thing," Rogue said. "Ah didn't have powers at the time. The Reavers'd found me, and they had standin' orders t' kill X-Men. Ah had a big gun pointin' at my face. But before they could get t'pullin' the trigger, my...my body just kinda divided in two. Like Ah was some big amoeba or somethin'. An' the other me...that was you. As Ms. Marvel. She charged in 'n' busted their chops, an' we was both out of danger for while.

"That is, we was outta danger from the Reavers. She still wanted to throw down on me, just like you wanted to, only she wanted to kill me."

Carol said, "Don't worry. Back then, I wanted to kill you, too."

Rogue said, "Look, Ah said Ah'm sorry. What else d'you want me to say?"

"Nothing, Rogue. Go ahead. What happened?"

Rogue sighed, massaged her own feet. "Ah ran from her. She caught up t'me. In between then 'n' there, she'd gotten taken over by the Shadow King, an' when she found me, she looked like somethin' outta a zombie movie. But she still hit just as hard as you evah did. Ah was lucky, in a way...Ah got my powers back when she was around. But...Ah was turnin' into a corpse, just like her, when she made contact with me."

Carol didn't trust herself to speak. In a way, she had gotten revenge on Rogue. Maybe she'd been getting it ever since the day her memories started tormenting the woman. Part of her, she had to admit, was cruelly satisfied.

"She said we didn't have enough life-force to sustain us both. So only one of us could live. She was gettin' the better of me, chokin' the life outta me. Ah mean, Ah was seein' black and purple and green, an' what little of her Ah could see, Ah saw she was...turnin' human. And Ah was turnin' into the corpse. Only Ah knew once she was done chokin' me, I wasn't gonna be doin' no walkin' around. She was drainin' me, usin' my power against me. She was killin' me, Carol. You were killin' me."

Carol didn't say anything for some time, but, after awhile, realized Rogue wanted her to break the silence. "So what happened?"

"Magneto. He found us both, 'n' he killed her. Said he knew only one'a us was gonna come through that fight, and he needed me, so he killed her. In a way, Ah guess he killed you."

Killed my memories, thought Carol. Now I'll never get 'em back. Not that I expected to. But I hoped...ah, what the hell.

"I guess he did," Carol said.

"Evah since then, Ah can't get taken over by her," said Rogue. "She's dead. She's out of my head. But that doesn't stop me from worryin' 'bout her comin' back...'bout her takin' over my body, 'bout her stranglin' me an' suckin' my life out and turnin' pink-skinned while Ah'm turnin' into somethin' like a slug. It scares the hell outta me, Carol."

Carol stood up. "Rogue, dammitall. I wish I could sympathize with you. But you know what you did to me. I can't overlook that."

"Ah don't expect you to," said Rogue, hiding her face against her knees. "But Carol, Ah'm so tired. And Ah'm so scared. Ah always end up turnin' to the ones I hurt the most, an' tryin' to put the pieces back together. Ah just wish t' the Lord above that I didn't bust people up in the first place so that I had to put 'em together again. Can Ah talk to you, Carol?" She looked up at her.

Yeah, right. Everybody wants to talk to me. The Dear Abby of the superhero world. Tell this bitch to walk it off a short pier, Carol. Preferably over the Marianas Trench.

"Well, can Ah?"

Carol shook her head. "Why the hell not? Everybody else does? Just get me some coffee before you do."

Rogue jumped up and ran to her Mr. Coffee machine, turning the tap on her sink on as she passed it.

"Sugar and cream," said Carol. "If it goes over an hour, I start charging."

-C-

It was more than an hour later that they emerged, but Carol didn't charge.

Rogue had told her of her own childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Carol hadn't said much, but Rogue was glad to get rid of the baggage, and the mutant's eyes were wet by the end of it. And after it, she thanked Carol for what she had given, which was nothing more nor less than a chance to try and make herself understood, and to put in a bid at least for forgiveness.

Carol wasn't saying anything about that possibility yet. Even to herself. She wanted to believe Rogue had changed, but a reformed rattlesnake is still a rattlesnake.

Later, she had caught Scott after lunch alone and didn't mince words with him. "You set me up, Summers. Why?"

Scott had looked at her neutrally. "You've got entirely too suspicious a nature, Carol. Rogue's just part of our team, that's why she's here."

"Bull," snapped the blonde in the yellow pantsuit. "With all the mutants you've got hanging around all your X-groups, you could've put together more teams than you can get poker hands out of a deck of cards. You set us both up, Scott. Rogue just as much as me. Why?"

He looked her up and down for a moment, and leaned against a table. "Because it had to be, Carol."

"Crap!"

"No, it's not. And you know it's not, too. If it was crap, would you have spent two hours together in her room playing mumblety-peg?" Cyclops looked at her, not flinching.

Carol came closer, getting in his face. "I've gotten tired of being manipulated, Scott. Really tired."

Scott replied, "I did it because it had to be, Carol."

"Why?"

"Because sooner or later, you two were going to meet again. On the same side. I can't keep her out of every single solitary matter that you have to be called in on. If Thanos pulls into town with that hot little gauntlet on his hand, do you think I can afford to say, 'Now, Rogue, you can't come with us because there's a chance Carol might be there, and she wouldn't like it'? Sooner or later, Carol, you and Rogue were going to be thrown together. If it was in a crisis situation, your lives and the lives of others might depend on you working together. Do you think I could afford to know that you or she might blow it, because of bad blood?"

"That situation's pretty hypothetical, Scott," she said, breathing heavily. "There's lots of heroes around. And I'm not really part of your team."

"No," he said. "You're not. But this was going to happen, whether we liked it or not. Therefore, it was better for it to happen in a place and at a time in which we had a degree of control over the outcome."

She gave him a look of rage. "You didn't know but what we'd kill each other. I wanted to."

"Did you?" said Cyclops, leaning forward until their foreheads almost touched. "If you did, why didn't you?"

"Because I'm not a murderer," she said.

"You've killed enemies before, Carol. I've seen your file. What made Rogue different? The fact that we were around there, and might tell on you to teacher?"

"No," she said. "You know damn well why I didn't."

"Tell me. Don't assume I know. Jean and Prof are the mind-readers."

"Because," she said. "Because...I..."

"Say it," said Cyclops, not giving a micron.

"...Because she wasn't...wasn't that kind of enemy," Carol stumbled. "Because...she wasn't trying to kill me, or even to hurt me all that badly. Not like...not like the last time, when she wanted to kill me."

Cyclops nodded, leaned back, folded his arms. "So what now? Are you going to be able to work with her?"

Carol looked away for a moment, then looked at him, and, finally mustering some defiance, nodded.

"Knowing what she did to you, you can look me in the eye and say you can work with her?"

"Yes," said Carol. "Yes, I can."

Cyclops said, "Then there must be something different about her. She must have changed. Is that it?"

"Don't put words in my mouth."

"Wouldn't think of it."

Carol said, looking at the carpet, "Don't ask me to bond with her. Ever."

"I'm not even asking you to bond with us. All I'm asking you to do is work with us. And with her. Just like you said you would. Will you do that, Carol?"

"Oh, hell, yes, Scott. You know I will. Just tell me one thing?"

"I'll try."

"You and Xavier," she said. "Both leaders. And you've both turned out to be manipulative bastards, when you needed to. Why? Why is that?"

He gave her a long look before answering.

"It comes with the territory," he said.

-C-

The next day the six of them-Phoenix, Cyke, Beast, Bishop, Rogue, and Carol herself as Binary-had taken a shuttlecraft up to the Starcore orbital station. She'd shaken hands with Peter Corbeau and his two flunkies, and gotten prepped, along with Jean, to do the power-charging job. Bishop was there to channel their energies properly into the station's systems.

As usual, the worst thing that could possibly happen to her happened.

A mysterious force had taken hold of her, caused her powers to surge out of control. Starcore was in danger of destruction.

On top of that, a Shi'ar representative had materialized, and told them all that Deathbird had declared her a threat to all life forms in that sector of space and that she had to be stopped.

But he was going to have to wait in line, because she was teleported in one direction and the X-Men and the Shi'ar guy in another.

Starcore had lucked out. It was charged up, and still in one piece.

Binary was thrown through a spacewarp, and, after resisting for a bit, decided to go with the flow and see where it took her. After all, she had power enough to defend herself against even a regulation-class warship. So she followed the force that drew her on, and found its ultimate source.

A white hole that was ripping up a sector of space.

A white hole of her own construction.

The X-Men had their own row to hoe, and so did the Silver Surfer, who ended up getting involved in the incident. At the time, she was oblivious to their conflict with the Shi'ar, and really couldn't have given a damn. The white hole star she had originally constructed to save the Earth was in danger of going supernova. She was trying to fight it, with her powers which were fluctuating up and down the scale, and she was losing the struggle. The star was going to blow, taking Carol, and a good number of inhabited planets, with it.

But she had learned that the hole's instability was not something she had caused. It had been destabilized by a group of cosmic agitators known as the Inciters, and they had left their signature in the doing. This much, from "reading" the star, Carol was able to understand.

She was well-nigh helpless, crucified without motion within the hole's effective range, when Phoenix came to the rescue.

Following a scenario laid out by Hank McCoy, Phoenix had engulfed Binary in a psionic field, helped her cut herself off from the star, and guided her in powering down. She was repeating words to Jean in the Kree language, except for one, which she was able to say in English: "Inciter".

The Surfer, elsewhere in space, had destroyed an Inciters installation and, with the aid of the X-Men, stabilized the white hole Carol was struggling with and two others besides. It had been a plot cosmic in scope, and some lives were indeed lost before the affair was concluded. But it had been finished, and Binary opened her eyes inside a psi-force bubble in space with Phoenix.

"Carol," said Jean, looking at her with conern. "Are you all right?"

"I," Carol had started. Then: "Yes, I think so. It's been a heckuva couple of hours-but yeah, I'm myself again, Jean, thanks."

And they had linked back up with the X-Men and gone home again.

She thought that was the last of it.

In her thinking, once again, she was proven hideously wrong.

-C-

In the days that followed, Carol went to work on her next book, a thriller in which a CIA agent found herself working with a Kree against other aliens. She had no idea if she could write salable fiction, but was willing to give it a helluva try.

In between efforts on that, she visited her parents and, occasionally, the X-Men and Avengers. Whether she liked to admit it to herself or not, Carol realized that most of the people she had for friends were super-heroes. Outside of them and her parents, she had lost touch with most other people.

Maybe, like Scott said, it went with the territory.

She wasn't with either team when the Apocalypse thing went down. She didn't know if she was glad or sad about that. All she knew at the time was that the X-Men and Avengers had gone in, and a whole bunch of Avengers didn't come out. Many of whom were her friends. Perhaps it took their deaths to make her realize that, but she admitted it nonetheless, went to their memorial service, and cried for them, and for herself.

They hadn't died, but she had no way of knowing that.

She was with the X-Men when the Silver Surfer blew into town, figuratively, from deep space. Binary and the X-Men had been on Starcore again, saw his entry, and got a group of USAF jets to break off their attack on the silvery sentinel. They hadn't had to give battle during that incident, and that suited Carol just fine.

The apparent deaths of the Avengers made Carol feel bad enough to want companionship, and she asked to move back in with her parents for awhile. Joe and Marie always said yes to a thing like that, so back she went, her computer in the back of her rental car. There were the usual hugs and conversations and questions and good food.

Best yet, when she entered her bedroom, she found a big box Joe had dragged down from the attic. It had been so long since she'd placed it up there that she'd forgotten what was in it. When she opened it, a tunnel of nostalgia opened with it.

There inside the box lay all the model airplanes she'd built when she was a child.

The Grumman Skyrocket. The Pantherjet. The five other minature examples of the airborne weapons of war, in a couple of which she had logged fight time (in their bigger, metallic versions, of course).

Best of all, the Warbird.

There they all were, the products of Uncle Sam's best Revell technology, still bearing the globs of glue and the just-slightly-off-kilter decals she had applied to them so many years ago.

A few seconds later, she had opened the door and called out, "Mom, you got any string and picture hooks left?"

By the end of the afternoon, the entire fleet of them was aloft, hanging from Carol's ceiling in perfect formation. She wondered if a string might break some night and cause a plane to bop her on the head while she was sleeping. Then again, she shrugged and figured she'd been through worse stuff.

Within a week, she'd added some Air Force posters to the decor and felt like a kid again. Joe Danvers had come in, saw her big smile when she looked up from her keyboard, and hugged her. "This Air Force stuff, you really loved it, didn't you?"

"Sure, Dad," she confessed, reaching up to kiss his cheek. "Ain't nothing like hotdogging it in one of the finest fighter planes on Earth." She was about to add, Or flying in space under your own power, but thought better of it.

Joe was satisfied, and so was Marie. Especially when her mother knew that she wasn't out on dangerous missions to save the sun or the moon or the rainbow or some such. So Carol passed her time, got some article assignments, researched, wrote them, and worked on her book.

Once every few nights, she drove the car out to fairly secluded spots and cut loose as Binary. She didn't even care if the locals who saw her reported a shooting star, or maybe the Human Torch flying over their town. She could fly, she had the power, and she was going to use it. And it felt damned good.

Then something changed.

Binary was pushing it all the way out of the lower atmosphere, to the outskirts of space, into space shuttle territory. No big thing for her. She'd been in deep space in her fire-form, and hadn't so much as gotten numbed hands.

This time it was different.

It was almost as though she were piloting a jet, and she'd had a flameout.

The surge of thrust-power propelling her away from Earth had seemed to falter. She noted it immediately, did a mental power-up, and restored her forward motion. Below her, the big blue marble turned, in the same manner as every astronaut from Yuri Gagarin on up had seen it.

Then her thrust lessened again. It slacked, as if she were driving a car and someone had watered down a load of gasoline in her tank.

Carol's ability to survive in space was, thankfully, unimpaired. But if her flight-power were dulled, it would make reentry a bit more hazardous, to put it lightly. She made a decision and, jackknifing her body like a high-diver, proceeded back towards Earth.

She felt the atmosphere thicken as she passed through various stages of it, calculated the flight-path she would need to follow to rezendevous with the continent of North America as it rotated by on Earth's surface, and gave herself a mental checkout.

It was subtle, but very definitely there.

Her power was not what it had been a few weeks ago.

A fighter pilot puts nervousness or fear into a back compartment of his or her mind while on the job. Tom Wolfe, in The Right Stuff, had told the tale of a pilot who muffed a landing in a jet that was being turned into a ball of aluminum around him, and his last recorded words were the codes for various righting maneuvers that he was attempting. No last words for the wife and kids, no screams of terror or pain. Just what he was doing to try and pull what he could out of the mess, before he died.

Carol's frame of mind was like that. Luckily.

The planet's gravity increased, dragged her down into what would have been a deadly fall had she not had the natural power to counter it. But it took so damned much out of her now. She was actually sweating as she drew on more and more broadcast power from her stellar sources, and flew towards the big blue and green wall looming below her.

That part of her mind which was analyzing the causes for her power-loss suggested a reason for it. The recent experience with the X-Men. The sojourn in the white hole. The Inciters' mechanism. Phoenix mentally cutting her off from the rampant star with a psychic force-field. The stabilization of that white hole and two others.

Had it cut her off from her power source?

It was a possibility, and a good one. But the problem at hand was getting back home without becoming part of the landscape.

She descended as quickly as possible, but knew the Earth's rotation had already brought day to pass since the time of her leaving. She didn't even know if she could properly pace the Earth's spinning, in her present condition. But she marshalled the concentration that had enabled her once to save the sun, and then to endure a white hole's wrath, and drew what power she could from the reaches of the universe.

Mile after mile she descended. The stars faded from sight, the sky became blue with refracted sunlight. A few high-flying jets took note of her, noted that her Avengers ID transmitter identified her as a friendly, and moved on.

By the time she pulled up into horizontal flight, a couple of miles above the ground, she was over California. It took a lot more time, and a lot more effort, than she would have liked to make it back to Boston.

But at last she did make it. It was 11:25 in the morning, the day after she had left on what was to have been a short space-hop of a couple of hours. Wearily, Carol checked out the area around the roadside park where she'd left the car, judged there was no one nearby to take notice, and descended.

A few minutes later, her heels touched ground beside her car. For a few moments she leaned against it and panted, coming back to herself. Then she took a key from a hidden pocket, unlocked the door, and lurched inside, fumbling under the seat for the windbreaker jacket and purple jumpsuit pants she had stashed there. Carol donned them over her Binary costume and, after a few more moments of deep breaths, put the key in the ignition, started the engine, and drove home.

As soon as she pulled up, Marie, who had been looking hopefully out the screen door, emerged from the house and was there to hug her when she arrived. "Carol, where've you been?" she exclaimed. "You were out so late last night, we were both worried. I'm going to call Joe and tell him. We were just about ready to call the cops."

"I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine," Carol had said, and knew she didn't sound it.

Her mother gave her a suspicious look. "Carol, you haven't been out with...you know...doing what you do?"

"No, Mom, I just pushed myself a little over capacity," said Carol, trudging up the front porch steps. "I'll be all right, really."

"You got a call last night," said Marie. "It was from a woman. She gave you a number to call, said it was important."

"Did she give a name?" Carol pushed open the screen door and entered the house. She was in favor of an hour's worth of soaking in the tub and an afternoon nap. To hell with the book for today.

"No," Marie answered, right behind her. She went to the table where the phone sat and picked up a piece of paper she had stuck under it. "Here."

Carol took it. The number was an unlisted number for Avengers Mansion.

"Thanks," she said. "I'll take it in my room."

"Don't you want any lunch?"

"Not right yet, Mom." Carol lumbered to her room, shut the door behind her, and locked it. Then she flopped down in the chair in front of her computer, threw back her head, and sighed.

Before she called the Mansion, she opted to check her e-mail. When the Avengers had something for her, they usually used both methods to reach her. Bingo. One message had a sender's address which was one of their cover names.

She opened it.

Carol:  
Team is back together. Lost birds have returned to coop. Details face-to-face.  
Major meeting Wednesday. Please make it, would love to see you.  
Wanda

"Great," said Carol, throwing off her windbreaker and draping it over the back of the chair. "Just great."

She dialed the Avengers' answering service, left a message saying that she'd be there, and then went in, filled up the tub, and tried not to fall asleep in it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**  
** A Prize For Three Empires**  
Part 11  
by DarkMark

"I don't even want to go there," said Carol, hugging her knees as she sat on the bed. "Don't even want to go there at all."

"So don't," said Marie, vacuuming the hardwood floor of her room. "From what you've told me, they've got enough people for a political party. What are they going to do that's so interesting? Run a bingo game?"

"I can do the vacuuming, Mom."

"So can I, and I've got the machine right now. Carol, answer me this. You're a grown woman, you've been through stuff I can't even imagine going through, over and over again. You know these people. What are you so afraid of?"

Carol lay back on the bed, her hands covering her eyes. "I'm losing my powers. Ever since we did that trick with the white holes in space, they've been tapering off. They'll be expecting Binary, super-wonder girl who punches out plasma. They're getting something closer to Ms. Marvel."

Marie Danvers shut off the vacuum. "And that's so bad? Would it be so bad if you lost all your power, and was just plain Carol Jane again, like you were when I had you?"

"No, Mama," she said. "You just don't get it. The Avengers is a power organization."

"And you've got powers, for crying out loud! You told me yourself. They recruited you, as I recall, when you were Ms. Marvel, not this Binary character. If you don't want to go, don't. If you do go, just act nice to everyone, say 'It's good to see you again,' and don't commit to anything. You've got your writing to do, anyway. Don't you?"

Carol nodded. "Yeah. But there are still folks I want to see up there. Wanda. Cap. The Beast. Also, a lot of 'em just came back after we thought they were dead for some time. It'd look like a real insult if I didn't show up."

"You act like this was some high school party. What do you want? Make a decision, and stick with it. Carol, with all the problems you've had with these super-types, I should think you'd let 'em alone. They only get you into trouble. Don't they?"

"They do," she admitted. "But they're also friends. I'm going." She jackknifed off the bed, on the side away from her mother. Then she pulled a drawer out of her chest of drawers, emptied the underwear inside it onto the bed, pulled out the fake bottom, and took what was lying there.

It was the suit, sash, and gloves portion of her Ms. Marvel costume. The mask and boots were elsewhere.

"Better wash that before you put it on," said Marie. "It's been in there awhile."

"It has," Carol said, and traipsed off to the laundry room.

-C-

As it was, just about everyone who had ever been in the Avengers and who wasn't dead made the scene. She wasn't sure, after looking at the Swordsman, if the latter condition hadn't been waived. But he was a Swordsman from a parallel world, or so they said.

There were new faces, new superhero names to memorize, and Wanda hadn't gotten there when Carol arrived. She was wearing the Ms. Marvel suit, but she powered up sufficiently to give them the old red-skin-and-fiery-head effect. She was greeted by Jarvis, and introduced by him to the crew in the big den as "Binary."

God, please don't let them know how much I'm faking it, she prayed.

Natasha, the Black Widow, was one of the first to step up and shake her hand. "It's great seeing you again, Carol. The Big Five are in a closed meeting right now, but they'll be joining us soon."

"The Big Five?" asked Carol. "I thought there were just Cap, Iron Man, Hank, and Jan. Did the Hulk rejoin or something?"

"Bojemoi!" The Widow laughed. "No, Thor made it back, too. But just about everyone here has been under attack recently by trolls and gnomes and fairies, like something out of Tolkien. And only old and new Avengers members have gotten it. Have you?"

"No," she had to admit. "Maybe I'm not enough of an Avenger for them to bother with?"

The Black Widow studied her for a second. "Well, neither did Reed or Sue Richards, and they were with the team for awhile. Something wrong, Carol?"

"Oh, nothing," said Carol. "'Scuse me, Tasha. I'm going to talk to McCoy. It's nice talking to you."

She crossed the room, being greeted by a number of the others and greeting them in turn. So many, many people in crazy costumes. She-Hulk. Sersi. Hercules. Machine Man. Falcon. Rick Jones, whose legs had been injured, in a floating chair like Professor X's. Crystal. Starfox. Sandman, a former criminal. A woman with a staff, whose name, she learned, was Magdalene. The new Swordsman. Moondragon. D-Man. The Black Panther. Sub-Mariner. The second Spider-Woman. Tigra. Justice. Rage. Firestar. Spider-Man. Captain Marvel II, who was now Photon, thankfully. Black Knight. Stingray. Quasar. The Vision. Espirita. Living Lightning. Darkhawk. And just now, Jarvis announced the arrival of three more: Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver.

Good Lord, it was a colony.

The Beast was showing off, balancing on his toes on the mantelpiece in front of a painting of the five original Avengers. Or maybe it was just an attempt to find a place to stand. "Hank," she called.

He glanced around and saw her. "Carol," he said, and jumped down, landing gracefully on the floor in front of her. "How've you been? Run into any rough Shi'ar lately?"

She shrugged.

The Beast tried a new tack. "Nice threads, Carol. So, is it back to the divine Ms. M, or are you still going by 'Binary'?"

"Oh, what different does it make, Beast?", she said, tiredly. "What I want to know is, why are we standing around wasting time? We were called by Captain America and the others. So where are they?"

He spread his hands. "Doing something Avengerish. Sitting around playing Original Five games again. How should I know?"

Darkhawk, the armored guy who was newer than both of them, broke in. "I think they're trying to see if they can contact the last remaining members, Hank. Like the Hulk, Mr. and Mrs. Richards, and the Thing. Whatever this phenomenon is, it's targeted almost all of the team."

"What happened to that new Thor guy?" asked Carol.

"Dead," said Hank.

"Oh," she said.

She wondered if she should find Jarvis and ask him for a drink. She clasped both hands behind her and held onto them to keep them from trembling. "We haven't been introduced," she said to the guy in the armor. "I'm Carol Danvers."

"Darkhawk," he said. "Pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand and, somewhat nervously, she shook it. "I was with the West Coast branch. Didn't you serve as Ms. Marvel?"

Before she could answer, Jarvis's voice rang out through the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, excuse me," he said. "Captain America and the others have requested your presence in the briefing room. Please follow me."

-C-

All of them had filed into the big auditorium and occupied the seats while Captain America, Giant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man, and Thor gave them a briefing. The mythological weirdies that had attacked the various members that week were possibly connected to something called the Twilight Sword, which was lost, and five "norn stones", on which they had a make. So they divided the team into five parts, mounted Quinjets, and were off.

They found the sword, and quite a bit more than that.

They found themselves in the power of Morgan Le Fey and Mordred, two ancient sorcerors from the time of Camelot.

Somehow, Morgan's magic, boosted by the captive Scarlet Witch, was used to either turn Earth into a world styled after medaeval Britain, or they were shunted into a parallel world, or something. Whatever the case, for a time they served her, as her Imperial Guard, under her mental domination. They all got names more suited to the time of knights and dragons. Hers was Lady Marvel.

The good guys had won, with a little help from Wonder Man, who was effectively brought back from the "dead" by having his energy reassembled. She had done her part, even though she found being under someone else's mental control gave her harrowing flashbacks to the Immortus incident. She was still able to fly, to fight, to use super-strength, and to throw off a few plasma bolts.

But she was slackening off, power-wise, and hoped it wasn't too obvious to the others.

With the breaking of Morgan's spell, the world had come back to its normal state. The Beast had summed up the adventure with one question, which he put before them all: "What are we gonna do with 39 Avengers?"

Everybody knew the real answer: Throw some people out.

For a week or two, the bulk of the team was on call, with a large mass of them answering calls, crushing whatever luckless super-baddie happened to be in operation right then, and, largely, getting in each other's way. Eight of them, including the Black Widow, left fairly early. Five others followed shortly after. The five Founding Members, who had charter power over the entire team, took a meeting to sort out the rest.

While that was happening, Carol finally went to Hank McCoy in the lab section of the mansion. "Hank," she said. "I've got to tell you something. When I do, I want you to keep it to yourself until I announce it. I'm trusting you. Okay?"

The blue-furred acrobat peered over his granny glasses at her. "Carol, look. We've been friends ever since you did your original tour of duty with this team. I've worked with you here, and with the X-Men. It behooves me to say, if you can't trust me after all that, what must I do to earn it?"

She said, "I just need you to run some tests on me. We need to keep the tests, and the results, confidential for right now. Yes, Hank, I do trust you. Can you trust me?"

He swiveled his chair around, reached out, and took her hand. "It's about your powers, isn't it?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"I don't think everyone noticed," he said. "Not all of them have seen you as Binary. But I've seen you punching out Rogue and trying to tame a white hole star. I could tell, after I got out from under Morgan's control, that you weren't using all the power that you used to have. The Shi'ar incident caused that, am I right?"

"Probably so," she admitted.

"Let's see what I can do."

-C-

Over the next week, her power waned more. She was still left with what abilities she had as Ms. Marvel. The Binary force seemed to have reenergized her Kree / human genetic matrix. She was grateful for that, at least.

But she could barely even change form, now. It was getting more difficult for her to even do the flare-up transformation. Usually, it took several tries before she got going, like a difficult cigarette lighter. She also found her flame-projecting abilities fading. She could still use the blasts, still punch through metal with them. But they were nowhere near what they had been in the past. Nowhere near enough to tame a star.

Her hands clamped in power-gauging devices, Carol said to the Beast, "I need a new name."

He looked at her. "Won't that be a giveaway, Carol? That's admitting you don't have the star-power anymore."

She said, "I've changed names before. They'll just think it's another title change for awhile, until I tell them."

"And you are going to tell them?" Hank looked at her, waiting for her answer.

"Yes," she admitted. "But not now. I haven't even thought of a new name yet."

"What about Ms. Marvel?"

"I think that lady Thing is still using it, and I don't want to go backwards. Even if I am." She sighed. "What name isn't taken these days?"

"Good question," said Hank, who knew that super-heroes were still a growth market. "How's about something mythological? Athena? Pallas? Nike?"

"Oh, come on, do I look Greek to you?" While she spoke, she exerted her concentration once more.

She was rewarded with a flareup of transformation. The nimbus of Binary power surrounded her, transforming her head to flame and her skin to a reddish color. But it only lasted five seconds.

"Not at the moment, no," said the Beast. "Corona? Flare? Blaze?"

"Taken, I don't think so," she said, returning to her human appearance. "And I don't think so. So what's the score? Give it to me straight."

She had to admit, the last transformation had tired her. Not good.

"Straight you want, my dear Ms. Danvers, straight you get. It appears that your powers have definitely decreased. From these readings, I doubt you'll even be able to shift into your Binary form again." He paused. "I'm sorry."

There it was. The pronouncement. Like a small lead coffin in her stomach.

No more soaring through space with the power of thousands of white holes broadcasting to her. No more saving the sun. No more blasting spaceships to bits.

No more Binary.

She took a deep breath. "Don't be," she said. "It's not your fault. Besides, you're only confirming what I already knew. I've been feeling it for weeks." She began unhooking the power-measuring gauntlets. "Just do me a favor, Beast, and don't tell anyone. Hey, would a fighter plane work? One of the old Warbirds, maybe?"

The Beast looked up from his computer screen, and gently smiled. "For an ex-USAF cutie who flies? How outre can you get? But hey, you go from being phenomenally powerful to merely incredibly powerful. Where's the harm in telling-"

"No, Beast," she said, firmly. "You've got the X-Men. I want on this team, and I'm not going to risk jeopardizing it. Now what've you got?"

"Uh, before you look..."

She looked at the list of names he had typed up. "Warrior Woman? Regalia? Stuka? Blitzkrieg?"

"Hey, I'm called the Beast," grinned McCoy. "What do I know from names?"

They both laughed, and were glad of the chance.

"Promise me you won't tell," she said.

"I promise," he replied. "Promise me you will tell."

She said, "When the time comes, Hank. When it comes."

-C-

The only reason she knew that she had for wanting to stay on the team was because some of the people on it, such as Jan and Cap, were good friends. And because it was a place to go. And maybe because the writing wasn't taking off again like she wanted it to.

Maybe it was because being a super-hero was something she knew how to do. Or maybe it was because she wanted to know if she still could do it.

Whatever the case, she told her parents that she was staying in New York for awhile, and would be back whenever time permitted. After finishing a call to her mother, she hung up, walked out of her room, and headed for the den.

Nobody was there at the moment.

She was still shaky. She didn't know how long she could keep faking it, or what the rest would think of her-especially Wanda and Jan-when she had to tell them.

There was a wet bar against the wall. As far as she knew, most of the team were neither lushes nor teetotallers. She'd never seen Iron Man drink, but she'd never seen him eat, either. He would have had to lift his faceplate for that.

She picked her way through the various bottles, hefted one which contained Scotch, and looked at it.

Her hands didn't seem to be shaking.

Maybe this was the ticket. Just a quick one, to clean out the old pipes. Like she used to have before she went up in the fighter birds. Those had always made her feel a bit steadier.

Couldn't hurt.

She heard someone clearing his throat.

She looked up and saw Iron Man, standing in the doorway. "Oh, ah-hi, Iron Man," she fumbled, putting on a smile. "What's up?"

He looked at her hands and what was in them.

"We're ready for you in the meeting room. If you're ready, that is."

"Of course," said Carol. She set the Scotch bottle on the bar and shoved the cork in a bit more firmly. "I was just, uh, making sure we were well stocked. There'll be a press conference later, after all. And I used to be a magazine editor. I know how reporters can drink."

"Um," Iron Man said, in his mechanically filtered voice. "Right."

Carol smoothed the mask back onto her face. "So let's go, okay?" She turned and went through the door he had opened, not waiting for him to follow.

Iron Man looked at her retreating back. For him, just being this close to booze was an experience he could do without. He had had his Lost Weekend some years back. It had cost him his reputation, his company, his career as a super-hero, and damn near his life. He'd gotten that all back, piecemeal, after he quit the stuff.

He didn't see any used glasses around. But he knew the signs of covering up.

He'd done that many times before, himself.

Perhaps Carol wasn't into the stuff. Perhaps, if she was, she could handle it. Many could.

But the ones who couldn't always covered up.

-C-

As it was, the Original Five came out of the meeting, gave the news to the remaining members, and announced the team lineup. Captain America said, "Hank and Jan are leaving active membership for the moment. So now, the current team consists of myself, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, Justice, Firebird, and Binary."

"Warbird," she said.

Cap looked up. "Excuse me?"

"I'm calling myself Warbird now, Cap," she said. "After an old fighter plane. Hope you don't mind."

He said, "Is this a formal change, Carol? As in, permanent? The press is going to be confused enough about some of these names as it is."

"Permanent for the moment, Cap," Carol said, with a smile. "I feel more comfortable with my new name. Not too many folks outside of our community know about Binary. Just tell 'em I used to be Ms. Marvel."

"Okay," said Cap. "If you're sure about it."

"I'm sure about it," she said.

Iron Man had given her a look, but hadn't said anything. Which was fine by her.

So they called the press conference, and presented the new team, and Carol smiled and posed with the others and got a charge out of Cap raising his fist and yelling, "Avengers assemble!" The flashbulbs had popped and the newsies ran their videocameras and everyone from CNN was happy.

After the ceremony, she went back to her room, locked the door, and pulled a bottle of Scotch out of the back of a drawer. This was one she had bought, so they wouldn't miss it from the bar.

She poured one in a water glass and sipped it and felt it burn down.

Carol had flashbacks of throwing one down with the boys just before they went up in a jet. That made her feel better. Nostalgiac. In control.

So she threw another one down in honor of the memory. She kept throwing them down till half the bottle was gone and the memories weren't clear anymore, but she really didn't give a damn.

Not giving a damn was very nice.

When Jarvis buzzed her about dinner, she said that she wouldn't be down, that the others should go on without her, and she'd have something later herself.

She hoped she sounded sober. But really, at the moment, she didn't give a damn.

-C-

Carol was careful enough to keep it sober around the others, during the daytime. She performed in the training exercises like a trouper, using her starbolt powers to trash exercise-robots, setting a record for performance which impressed Cap thoroughly. But he asked her why she hadn't just powered up to her Binary status and blasted through all the robots and obstacles like a laser through tissue paper.

She switched the subject.

Shortly afterward, they had to rescue the passengers of an airliner which crashed just off the Maine coast, and ran into the Squadron Supreme. They ended up fighting, and Carol acquitted herself fairly well. But Cap had ordered her to switch to her Binary form while fighting Hyperion, and she pretended she couldn't hear him. She also ran into one of Hype's super-powerful punches, and got knocked practically into the next county.

During that gig, she had been careless enough to leave her door unlocked. Wanda had walked in on her, wanting to talk to her about some problems of her own.

She had seen Carol taking a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the cabinet in her room.

For a second, Carol had frozen. Then, she told herself, What the hell, nobody exactly expected me to be Carrie Nation anyway. "C'mon in, Wanda. Make yourself at home. This whole impostor thing's getting to me, and I thought a little nip or two might settle my nerves. Care to join me?"

She didn't, but she did take some Bavarian Chocolate Pecan ice cream from Carol's fridge and helped herself to a bowlful. During the conversation, Wanda had said, "Are you sure you should be drinking that much? It's only-"

"Back off, hon," said Carol, and hoped she wasn't doing it too forcefully. "I know my limit. Besides, once you get to be my age, you'll realize that stuff goes to your hips a lot faster than this."

And she knocked one back, and felt it burn down, and didn't give much of a damn what Wanda thought at the moment.

After all, Wanda was a friend. And friends covered for you.

At least, they were supposed to.

-C-

Captain America had bluntly questioned her about her powers, a while later. She had put him off, and flatly said, "Look, Cap. They're my powers, and I'll be the judge of how best to use them. You just butt out, and I'll do my job-without interference. Got that?"

Cap didn't look at all pleased. "Now, see here," he started. But Iron Man had put a metal-gloved hand on his shoulder, whispered something to him, and Cap had subsided. "All right," he said. "For now."

She had performed up to expectations, and beyond. Warbird had cracked the case, exposing one of the enemy as the Corruptor, an old foe of theirs. The Squadron and the Avengers captured him and patched up difficulties. Afterward, she had handed Cap the scanner with which she detected the villain's imposture. "Here. Thought you might like to have this. Maybe it'll remind you next time that us peons can think for ourselves."

Cap took the hand-held instrument from her. "I've got nothing against initiative, Warbird, or independent thought. What I don't like is not knowing my team's capabilities. If there's something wrong with your powers that I should know about-"

She blazed at that.

This was Captain America. Her old friend. The one with whom, at first, she thought she had had the best rapport. The one who had been one of the idiots who betrayed her to Marcus Immortus, and had begged her forgiveness, and gotten it. The one who had congratulated her for saving the sun. The one who had helped welcome her back into the team.

The one who thought he had the right, now, to judge her.

"So that's it, eh?" she said. "You've been looking for any excuse you can find to get me off this team-and now you think you've found it. Well, I'm wise to you, Captain, and it's not going to work. You hear? It's not going to work!"

She had flown off, then, leaving a nonplussed Cap and the rest of the team below her.

In a while, she'd be back. But she was going back to Boston for a short bit. Avengers Mansion would hold too much of a stench for her to be there, right now.

On the way, she was going to see if her Avengers I.D. could get her credit at a liquor store. If it could, there was always the chance that the group could trace the purchases. And if they had their eye on her right now, they might do just that.

But right now, there was one thing she had to admit.

She didn't really give a damn.


	12. Chapter 12

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**

**A Prize For Three Empires**

Part 12

by DarkMark

Marie Danvers had never seen a superhero up close and personal other than her daughter.

That was why, when the man in the red and gold armor had dropped out of the sky with the light blue flame of jet afterburners coming from the soles of his shoes, and addressed her by name, the only thing she could do was gape and say, "Iron Man?"

Thankfully, he had the courtesy to land on the sidewalk, not on the lawn. His boot-jets might have ruined the grass. It was also a blessing that Joe was at work.

But there he was. One of the oldest and most powerful Avengers of all, reminding Marie in part of a knight in shining armor, of that movie RoboCop which she'd caught out of the corner of her eye and then shut off when he started slaughtering people, and, lastly, of Carol herself, who was the only superhero she could judge things by.

Iron Man apologized for his dramatic entry, then asked Mrs. Danvers if Carol was in. Marie knew that the Avengers knew who Carol was, but, until now, wasn't sure they knew she knew, as well. Obviously, they knew Joe didn't. That was why the man in the armor had come while Joe was away.

"Yes," Marie admitted. "She's been living with us again for quite some time now. Won't you come in?"

"Thank you," said Iron Man. He stepped inside.

"Uh, Mr. Iron Man, please, one thing."

He turned towards her. She saw eyes through the slits in his face plate, which was reassuring. He wasn't a robot.

"This house cost us a lot of money, and it's very dear to us. Please don't get into any fights around here. We can't afford to replace it."

"Wouldn't think of it, Mrs. Danvers. If Galactus attacks, we'll ask him to take it down the block."

-C-

Carol had just about ridden out her hangover by the time Iron Man knocked on her door. She told him to come in, saw who it was, and didn't move from the bed she sat on. "Oh, it's you. So, Captain America send you up here to check on me?"

Iron Man moved inside the room, his boots making the familiar muffled clanking noise, and shut the door behind him. Despite it all, Carol admitted that she enjoyed hearing the sound again. Then the hero in metal spoke.

"Cap didn't have to send me, Carol. We're all concerned about you, and for you. The way you flew into a rage as Warbird after our battle with the Squadron Supreme, the way you snapped at Cap and fled."

Carol was irritated. She shifted her position on the bed, under the big AIM HIGH poster from the Air Force. "I was there. I remember. I don't need a recap. What's your point?"

Iron Man said, "I thought...I thought maybe we could talk a little."

She shrugged.

The armored Avenger walked a bit closer, looked up at the model planes hanging from her ceiling, reached up and gingerly touched one. "Nice work on the models, by the way. Yours?"

"The result of a zillion Saturday afternoons and an airplane-mad youth. Anything with wings, I loved. Especially the old Warbirds. The speed. The power. The sheer beauty of them. No surprise, huh?"

He looked at her.

Carol continued, "That's why I renamed myself Warbird when I joined the Avengers again. Lying on the bed so long, looking up at these things, I guess I thought it might give me a connection to my past."

Iron Man gauged her voice tone. He saw an open bottle of Budweiser on the bedstead behind her, right next to a model of a Saturn V rocket. Like it was going to take off in tandem.

It was only beer. But if Jarvis was right when he had questioned him, Carol had been through a lot more than beer lately. He said he could smell it on her.

"Look, Carol, I didn't come here to argue with you. I just thought that, well, maybe, I might be able to help."

With that, Iron Man touched a control at the bottom of his face plate, loosened a coupling, and flipped the golden plate upward. He looked at her and showed her the face of Tony Stark.

She laughed.

"Tony Stark," she said. "Iron Man is Tony Stark. Well, doesn't that make sense? You hide it well, Tony. The voice, the attitude, the story about being your own bodyguard-I'd never have guessed."

He locked the door behind him to keep Mrs. Danvers from walking in, took off his helmet, and waited for her to speak again.

"So, Tony Stark," Carol said. "You design the world's best armor, airplanes, computers, and more. So tell me, can you fix someone who had everything, but lost it all?"

"What do you mean?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Carol got up and looked out of the window, pressing her fingers against the glass. "What do I mean?"

She drew the curtains to keep any passers-by from looking in and possibly learning something that could hit CNN within the hour if it was revealed. Then she gave him a short but detailed history of her life as a woman. And as a superhero.

During the course of it, she finally admitted what she figured they knew by now. Her Binary powers were gone, leaving her with only the scaled-down abilities of a Ms. Marvel. "I lost everything on Earth," she said, "only to lose the stars, as well. I thought I could find a place for myself. Be an Avenger, at least. And I'm going to, no matter what Captain America tries."

Tony looked uneasy. "What Cap tries? It's not like-he's not-" He shook his head and sighed. "Carol, I'll never understand what all this has been like for you. But I do know about stress. How overwhelming it can be." He picked up the bottle of Bud from the bedstead, hefted it, looked at it as if it were an old friend and a dangerous snake at the same time. "And how attractive it can be to hide from it." He paused again.

"Has alcohol been a part of dealing with things?"

He was looking straight at her as he said it. He hoped he was giving her a gentle expression.

She looked back at him. This man who had been one of those who betrayed her to Marcus Immortus. This man who had been an alcoholic himself, so bad of one that a substitute had to assume his armor while he dried out. This man who, despite it all, she had wanted to count as a friend.

This man who was judging her.

She powered up and her lounging clothes were replaced by the uniform of Warbird. Tony thought she looked beautiful, sexual, and powerful, all in one package. She also looked like a Fury.

"Oh, is that it?" raged Warbird. "That's the pigeonhole you've decided to stick me in? It's easy, isn't it? You're an alcoholic, so anyone you know who drinks must be an alcoholic, too. Saves the trouble of thinking about it."

She was shouting, almost. Tony remembered his promise to Mrs. Danvers. "Carol, no," he started. He wanted to tell her he had come to help, not judge. He wanted to tell her that he saw her at the top of the slope he had started down, that horrible time ago, and merely wished to keep her from sliding down any further.

But Carol wasn't giving him a chance to tell her anything.

"Sure, I take a drink or two," she snapped, pointing at his face. "I've earned it. But it doesn't affect me, not for long. The energy in my metabolism burns it off right away."

"Oh, come on, Carol," said Tony. Maybe it was time to get tough with her. "You don't really believe that. Although, I must admit, as rationalizations go, it-"

"Get out, Tony. Before I rip that armor off and throw you back to New York. I'm not what I was, but I don't have to take this."

She was breathing heavily. Her fists were clenched. In short, she was doing everything she could to keep from facing what she had become.

The terrible part of it now, Tony judged, was that nobody was doing it to Carol this time. For the first time, she was doing it to herself.

Until she was ready to listen, not a word he said would make a bit of difference. So he turned, put his helmet back on, went to the door, and unlocked it. He turned back to Carol one last time.

"When you're ready to listen, I'm ready to help," he said.

"Get out," she repeated.

He left.

After he was gone, Warbird looked at the bottle of Bud. She sniffed the top of it. It was probably flat, but there was a little left in it. So she knocked it back.

Wasn't good to have one like this on so little breakfast. Should have a whole one.

She sat with the bottle in her hand and thought. Thought about Mr. Armor with a metal rod up his ass. Mr. Self-Righteous Reformed Boozehound. Mr. Friend of Captain I'm-gonna-get-you-thrown-out-of-the-Avengers America.

Like it was her fault she felt like a drink after she'd risked her damn neck once a month for people who didn't give a damn.

Like it was her fault she'd let it slip a little after losing her powers. Didn't anybody remember her saving the sun? Didn't anybody remember Marcus Immortus, for cripes' sake?

Like any of it was her fault.

She powered down and returned to her Carol Danvers self. Then she went to the door, told her astonished mom she'd be back, and got in her car. She'd decide what to do about Phony Stork later.

At least a six-pack later.

-C-

As it was, she paid a visit to Tony Stark's Long Island plant office afterward. She came through the window, and it wasn't raised before she entered. There was somebody else with him at the time, but she didn't really give a damn. She grabbed Tony by the collar, one-handed, and told him that he wasn't going to get her thrown out of the Avengers. No way. She was lit and she felt good about it, because it made her feel like she was on top of the world. Like she was in control again.

Almost like she was Binary again.

Stark had tried to talk her down and she felt like putting her gloved fist in his face.

Then a tide of blood hit her brain and she looked at the woman who was in the office with both of them and saw the look in the woman's eyes. She was backed against the wall, trying to edge toward the door, and looking at Carol like she was some kind of super-villain, for god's sake.

She gazed at Tony again and saw that she might be hurting him.

What the hell was happening to her?

Warbird let him down, gently, tried to smooth out his suit where she had grabbed him. She tried to apologize.

That was when, of all things, a squad of three blue-skinned Kree burst into the same room. They used the door. They had big guns, and they could have wiped out everyone in the room. They wanted to take Warbird with them, for somedamnthing or another. Tony had cued her and she had blasted through the floor, sending herself and him into the room below. He got to his attache case down there, turned into Iron Man in seconds, and both of them went after the Kree.

They also had to take on a Sentry.

The Kree took off in a skycraft, and Warbird pursued it. The building they had been fighting in had sustained structural damage, even though the Sentry had been beaten. Iron Man told her that the people within were in danger. She yelled back at him to save them, she was going after the Kree.

She had faith in him. He had his job to do, she had hers. She'd show them all.

Except the Kree had showed her.

Warbird had trailed the Kree ship to her old stomping grounds, a hidden site near Cape Canaveral. It was a place out of a Nazi nightmare. The blueskins were subjecting captive humans to gas experiments, to find a method of turning them into genetic Kree. Many of the subjects had died.

They had found Carol and battle had begun. The booze was burning out of her body, and she was holding her own, but just barely.

She still had an Avengers Communicard, and could have called in the whole team. But that wouldn't give her a chance to shine. They wouldn't know she could still be a heroine. Maybe just one would be needed. She doubted that Iron Man would be particularly pleased with her right now. He just didn't understand.

So she called on Cap, and Cap came.

That was good, because a few minutes after she put through the call, the Kree captured her. She was just about to be treated to the sight of another mass murder by gassing when the American legend appeared, freed her, and helped her fight the aliens.

He was apoplectic when she told him she hadn't called in the rest of the team. The Kree had blocked outgoing signals after her call.

He just wouldn't understand.

Cap had freed the prisoners and told her to see to their safety. She pointed out, she thought reasonably enough, that the Kree were getting away, and their agenda was to wreck the whole human race. He gave her a lecture, and not a nice one. He told her that she wasn't a team player, and that she wouldn't get his approval if she didn't get her head together and start acting like an Avenger.

So she decided to act like an Avenger, and tore off after the Kree escaping in a spacecraft.

The bad guys caught her in a stasis field, dragged her inside the ship, and took off.

They looked at her not unlike the way the Brood had looked at her when they had performed their little experiments upon her. Only this time, Carol was fairly sure that the Kree wouldn't end up turning her into Binary again.

The Kree forced an artificial power-down with a ray and she returned to her Carol Danvers status. She was strapped to a table and fixed beneath another sort of beam and could look up and see the faces of the Kree biotechs and a screen with the hateful green tentacled face of the Supreme Intelligence on it.

The Black Knight hadn't gotten him, after all.

She felt queasy and nerved and wondered if the good guys would get her out before the final reel again. They owed her, after all. Hadn't she saved the sun?

A drink would help clear things up. Good Lord, she needed a drink.

She managed to ask the Kree soldier tending her for one, but he said no.

-C-

They examined Carol's hybrid human / Kree DNA and used it to program a dingus they called the Omniwave Projector. They said the Omniwave would transform normal humans into Kree, and thus replenish in part the Kree they had lost during Galactic Storm. Of course, genetically modified persons such as superheroes would die. That would be convienient for the Kree.

Quicksilver had gotten to her and freed her. Then he ran off. Carol was shaky. She thought about powering up to Warbird, but wasn't sure how she'd feel if she did so.

One of the Kreemen, to taunt her, had brought in a few flasks of some stuff and had toasted her along with his buddies. There was still about a third of a big glass left of it.

She looked at it for about five seconds, then drank it.

It burned down in her like bourbon and it made the familiar and comforting click go off in her brain. Now she could handle things. Now it was all right.

She powered up, and her Warbird uniform appeared on her body. Let the whole damn Kree Empire come at her, now. She could handle 'em all. Handle 'em all without Avenger one beside her.

Warbird found where the Kree were keeping the Omniwave generator. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and the Inhumans' big mutt Lockjaw were there. So were a bunch of Kree. That was nice.

She sent out a barrage of power bursts. They weren't going just where she wanted. Nuts. Well, she figured she just had to keep sending them out, and sooner or later all the bad guys would fall down. It was the law of averages.

The bad guys fell down. So did the big dog, when she hit him in the leg. Well, after all, he shouldn't have been standing there. Wasn't he fast enough to get out of the way? What was he doing there if he wasn't?

She hit the generator. It blew up, ruptured the roof, and made the air start leaking out.

Quicksilver whizzed up, got her, and got Lockjaw to teleport them all out of there. He said he was going to report her to the Avengers.

He was a damn ingrate. She'd heard of how he'd tried to kill the whole team, East and West Coast together, some months back, before he reformed.

Self-righteous bastard.

Back at Avengers HQ, they patched up the dog, patted his head, and sent him back home. She apologized for hurting the mutt, but pointed out that she'd stopped the Kree. She didn't think they'd bust her out for hurting a dog.

She was wrong.

The next day, the Avengers had called a special tribunal. She had slept off the booze, woke up with a three-alarmer inside her head, and threw up in the john. Then she took a painkiller, got into her costume, had breakfast, noticed that Marilla wasn't saying anything to her, and went into the conference room.

Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, the Vision, and Quicksilver were waiting for her. Court-martial was in session.

Thor, who presided, spoke to her. "Warbird, all those here know thee to be a brave warrior and true. But thou dost face most grave charges today, that alcoholism hath made thee derelict in thy duties, and a danger to thyself and thy fellow Avengers. If this be true, then let thy comrades aid thee-help thee to triumph over this."

He waited for her to say something.

She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

After a few more seconds, he said, "Very well. We shall handle testimony in this matter in chronological order. And thuys, we shall begin with Iron Man."

Warbird listened to the whole damn thing. She heard Iron Pants, Captain-friggin-American Pie, and Slicksilver give their testimony. She objected, pointed up parts that they should have understood, that they could have understood if they'd only been trying. But they hadn't tried. And they still weren't.

Finally, the testimony was done. Thor asked if she had anything to say in her own defense.

"Yes," she said, and didn't bother to cover up the anger. Maybe it was the remnants of her headache, maybe she was undergoing some major PMS, maybe all the Kreevian booze hadn't flushed itself out of her system. All that she knew was that she was mad as hell, and didn't mind getting a chance to tell these asinine Avenger schmucks off.

"It's a crock, all of it. From beginning to end. I made a few mistakes, granted, but everyone does that. I've done pretty well, all told. I'm the one who exposed the Corruptor, after all. I'm the one who found the Kree, and I'm the one who blew up their power unit. Okay, so I shouldn't have hidden my power loss. But I'd already lost my past, my family, my friends, the stars. I didn't want to risk losing Avengers membership, as well.

"And now-now-you want to label me an alcoholic because I take a drink now and then? Try to throw me off the team? It's not just a crock. It's an outrage! If it wasn't for me, everyone'd be speaking Kreevian right now. If it wasn't for me, there wouldn't be anyone to speak it, because I saved the sun! Remember?"

There was a pause. Carol was hyperventilating. Her neck veins were visible to the others. They struggled to hold their composure.

Thor broke the silence. "And that is thy defense?"

She didn't say anything. She didn't think she had anything else to say.

They called a vote. They all went against her. Even Wanda, who was on the point of tears as she begged Carol to get some help, to beat this thing that was dragging her down.

They'd even gotten to Wanda, too.

An alarm came in. The Kree had been detected on the Blue Area of the Moon. Cap told the other members of the team to get ready for action, and had the Vision call up Justice and Firestar.

Carol gave them one last chance. She'd show them. She could swallow her pride one last time. Maybe they wouldn't be such hypocritical bastards after all. She put a smile on her face and turned to Cap.

"I've been on this from the start," she said. "And I know the battleground. You can't mean to-"

"No, Warbird." He said it firmly. His face was stone.

That did it.

"Well, fine," she snapped. "If that's the way you're going to be, I'll save you the trouble of finishing your kangaroo court's vote. Effective immediately-I quit."

So she stomped up to her quarters, powered down, packed what she had in a duffel bag, and left by a way which would not bring her into contact with any of the Avengers.

She chanced a look back as she reached the front gate, and saw Wanda looking down at her from a window.

Then she stepped through the gates, which automatically shut behind her.

She didn't look back.

That evening, she looked up at the moon. The Avengers were up there. So were the Kree. She had started in this fight, and she could help finish it. She'd show them. Then, after she showed them, she'd tell them where to stick their crummy team. By gosh, she'd do that.

Carol powered up, turned into Warbird, and streaked into the sky. Flying under her own power, that was a trip even jocking a fighter jet couldn't match. Nothing beat self-flight.

She soared up and up and up, into the farthest reaches of the atmosphere. She'd hit open space, soon, just like when she was Binary. She'd make a beeline for the Moon, plow into those Kree, and not even bother taking names when she kicked their blue butts.

It was getting kind of hard to breathe.

Well, maybe she just needed a little more determination. She forced more power into her flight. Warbird hurtled forward, upward.

The stars beckoned.

Her lungs were laboring for air.

Damn it damn it damn it NO...

The blue was turning to blackness, and she couldn't

go

any

farther...

She choked.

She began to fall towards Earth.

She plummeted back, as she had when she was Binary, some weeks past. Only her flight wasn't nearly so well-controlled. At the end of it, she was glad she had aimed herself over the bay. It still hurt, when she hit the water, even using all of her remaining power to pull up.

She managed to get to shore, to drag herself into an alley. She lay there a few minutes, gasping and gulping in the sweet, sweet air, as bad as the New York variety tasted.

She had blown it. The Avengers were fighting the Kree up there, and she had not been able to aid them. She had washed out.

She needed a drink.

She powered down, got up, and went in search of a bar.

It wasn't hard to find. It was there in the night with a friendly light and a cute SAFETY CHUTE parachute sign outside and the sign on the window said that it was indeed a bar and stayed open 24 hours.

It was her haven and her home.

While she was inside, the TV over the bar flashed a picture of the Avengers from stock footage and mentioned that they had beaten the Kree again.

She looked at the drink before her, which she had been nursing like she was afraid it would go away and leave her alone.

Then she knocked it back.

There was plenty more where that came from.


	13. Chapter 13

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**

**A Prize For Three Empires**

Part 13

by DarkMark

Carol turned up at the Greyhound station at 2 a.m., hauling a couple of grips, dressed in dark glasses, a coat, gloves, and a knee-length dress. She didn't like the way the off-duty cop who served as paid guard there was eyeing her. She figured it had to be the shades. She also didn't give a damn.

It felt strange on the way there, being crammed in that wheeled sardine can with around 50 other people. All of them working class or unworking class, some of them talking, most of them locked into their private worlds. That was all right by Carol. She sat beside an old black gentleman who, after they exchanged info about where they were headed, didn't talk much to her. That was all right by Carol. She didn't much want to talk to anyone.

She didn't feel like flying, either under her own power or on a plane. She didn't trust her driving right then. So the best thing was take the damn bus and leave the driving to them.

The night was chilly with stars out in full force. She looked up at them with some nostalgia as she opened the glass and metal door near the taxi stand. She wondered if all this incredible crap would have come down around her shoulders if, way back when, she had been satisfied with just being Earthbound.

"But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone." A slash of an old Chad and Jeremy song, from back when pop music sounded like music. She glanced back in the direction of the bus station and saw the people sitting there with their possessions clasped between their feet, staring at everything and nothing, listening for the taped announcement of the list of destinations for the departing box on wheels.

Carol sniffed the air. It was cold and good.

In a few minutes, a yellow cab which, like its driver, had seen better days, stopped by. Carol told him where to take her. "That's a far piece out there," he said.

"I've got money," she told him.

The cabbie helped her stash the grips in the trunk, then spoke his destination into his hand-held mike after Carol got in. She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. After a few attempts at conversation, the driver figured she just wanted to sleep, and let her alone.

Once or twice, he glanced at his mirror and saw her hands twitch or tremble. He asked if she was all right. She told him she was just fine.

They pulled in front of the house in the Boston suburb about an hour later. Carol paid him the fee in cash, and politely refused his offer to help her carry the bags up to the front porch. Nonetheless, he watched her from the cab until she had carried the suitcases up to the door, opened it with her key, and taken them and herself inside.

Nobody was up at that hour, and she was very glad. Carol navigated through the front room to the hall and thence to her own room in semi-darkness, trying not to bump the walls too hard. She only turned on her room light after she had closed her door. She disrobed down to her underwear and hung her clothes over the back of a chair.

Then she briefly unsnapped the locks on one of the grips.

Carol peeked inside. The Chivas Regal bottle hadn't broken. It still nestled safely in her pile of clothes and shoes and other stuff. Good. Her security blanket was still safe.

She closed the suitcase again. It'd keep till later.

She turned out the light, went to bed, and crashed.

Joe and Marie cracked the door in the morning, saw her, and let her sleep through till 10 a.m.

-C-

By the time Carol finished her toast, bacon, and egg, Marie was ready to talk to her. Joe was already at work.

"What's going on, Carol?"

Carol looked at her mother suspiciously. "What do you mean, 'What's going on', Mom? I just came back from Avengers duty. My last time with 'em, too."

Marie, in a floral-patterned housedress with her hair up in a kerchief, looked her straight in the eye. "I heard it on the news. You left the team. Captain America didn't say much about the reasons why."

"Captain America is one of the reasons why."

"So? What are your reasons?"

Carol ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face. "Don't want to talk about it, Mom."

"That usually means you do want to talk about it, honey, but you want to have it dragged out of you. Okay. What happened?"

Carol stared back at Marie in anger. "They wouldn't keep faith with me, Mom. After all the things I've done, risking my life, saving the sun, they wouldn't keep faith with me."

Marie gave her back an even gaze. "So tell me about it."

"Ah, jeez."

"Look, Carol, I'm the one who knows you're really this Warbird character. I wish you'd tell Joe, but that's your decision. Whatever it is, whether you're in that little black bathing suit and the boots or in your regular clothes, you can talk to me." She paused. "Can't you?"

"Ah, I-I don't know what the hell they expect from me, Mom," said Carol. "They betrayed me after that Immortus thing. They betrayed me-"

"Hold on a minute, honey," said Marie. "Did they know they were betraying you?"

"Mom, they had to! I mean, they should have. Anybody with the brains of a retarded newt would have known I was being manipulated by that-that-"

Marie tented her fingers. "How were they supposed to have known? When that happened, didn't you go along with that Marcus guy?"

She stared at Marie in disbelief. "Mom, don't tell me you're siding with them. Not on that."

"You think I'm going to make apologies for Marcus? A man who virtually rapes my own daughter?" She looked cold, hard, and not at all like the mother Carol Danvers was used to. "Hell, no. If he wasn't dead, I'd find out where he was, no matter how long it took me, and shoot him down dead with your father's .38. But the Avengers...they may have been dumb, all right. But weren't they just going on what information they had available to them?"

"I'm about ready to throw up on this table after hearing that."

"You do and you'll clean it up. Now, just sit there and listen. Okay?"

Carol didn't give her mother anything but a sullen look.

"I wasn't there. I just heard about it from you. All right, you turned up pregnant, had the baby that turned out to be, God help us, the guy who impregnated you. I still don't understand that. But when you went back with him, to all intents and purposes, didn't it look like you were doing it of your own free will?"

"My God, mother," breathed Carol. "They should have known. A woman is mind-controlled, raped, made amnesiac, forced to bear a child without knowing who the father is, and then goes with that child, now a grown man, to live with him-and they didn't know something was going on? They should have known!"

"Should have," said Marie. "But did they? Carol, if they'd really known you were going with Marcus unwillingly, don't you think they would have busted him up into little pieces to get you back? They're the Avengers, for crying out loud. Don't you think they liked you? Don't you think they considered you part of their team?"

"Mother," she said. "I can't believe you are doing this to me."

"Carol. Listen. It's time you pulled yourself out of that pity-pool and got on with your damned life. And part of it is realizing where you may have been wrong, and trying to do something about it. And part of it may be trying to see something from beyond your own perspective. Okay?"

"Sure. Like we have to consider the perspective of the rapist, don't we? After all, I must have been just teasing him from another dimension. I must just have wanted it!" Carol was almost in tears.

"Will you listen to me?" Marie was up, standing beside Carol, about to shake her by the arms if it was necessary. "Marcus was evil. The Avengers were just dumb. They let you down. You were hurt, all right. But did they really mean to hurt you?"

"Mom, I-"

_"Did they really mean to hurt you?"_

Carol was flatly crying. "They may not have meant it, but they did! They hurt me so much!"

"All right, they hurt you. You think I don't feel that, too? When my daughter goes through what you've gone through, you think I don't feel some of that, too? Do you think you're an island, Carol? Don't you know that what hurts you, hurts me?"

Carol didn't stop crying. But Marie knew she was listening, too, so she plowed on.

"You may not know this, but I am very proud of you. I was proud when you went into the Air Force, when you served your country as a secret agent, when you worked for NASA, when you edited that magazine and wrote that book, and, yes, when you put on those costumes and fought idiots in their fancy underwear. I think I'm even more proud of you than Joe is, because I know some of the things about you that he doesn't. How many mothers have a daughter who can achieve any one of those things? Not very many. And I've got a daughter that has done them all."

Carol reached out for her mother. Marie pushed her hands away. "No, you don't. You're not hugging me until I'm finished. And I've got a lot more to say yet.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Avengers are made up of the dumbest, most cowardly people on the face of the Earth. Am I right? I think I am. They maybe should have known what was going on with you and Marcus. But they didn't. Maybe they couldn't. All they saw was you, acting like you wanted to go with him, and you did. That's the information they had to go on. Honestly, Carol, do you think they would knowingly have let you go off with a rapist?"

"No," said Carol, snuffling.

"Well, then," she said. "We have established that they were dumb, yes, or maybe just deceived. But not malicious. Can we agree on that?"

"I didn't say they did it deliberately," Carol said. "I just said they should have known."

"Maybe they couldn't have, Carol," said Marie. "If they didn't know you were being controlled, how could they have known?"

Silence.

"So, now, you're out of the Avengers," Marie went on. "What went wrong this time?"

Carol stared down into her breakfast plate. "Long story."

"Wait till I go to the bathroom," said Marie. "Then don't leave anything out."

-C-

After the tale was told, Marie shook her head. "So now you've got a drinking problem, on top of all that. It's a wonder that I don't."

"Mom, I'm tapering off," said Carol. "I haven't even touched that bottle I brought home with me." She caught herself, and cursed. Marie was staring at her.

"What bottle? You brought some booze home with you?"

Carol slapped the table, remembering to pull her impact. "I need a drink every once in awhile. It calms me down. That's all."

"No, it isn't," said Marie. "You really need me to tell you that?"

"I don't need a lecture, Mom," said Carol.

"You need Al-Anon. I just hope you don't need Betty Ford."

"Look, I admit there was some problem in the past," said Carol. "Okay. I admit that. But they should have known I was having problems-" She caught herself again. "Oh, hell."

Marie looked at her. "Right. Should have, should have. That's a really useful phrase, isn't it, Carol? Bound to be a million uses for it. I should have gone to college. I should have been a working wife. I should have this, I should have that. I should have won ten million dollars in the lottery. But you know what, Carol? I didn't."

"Really cool, Mom. Non-sequitur city. I won the super-power lottery twice, maybe three times. Now I almost wish I hadn't."

"Really? You've been blessed with powers that maybe one out of a million people on Earth has, and you think that's such a bad thing? If it is, why don't you go to Reed Richards or somebody and have 'em taken away?"

"Because they're mine! I may have lost a lot, I may not be Binary anymore, but I'm still Warbird, and I'm going to stay Warbird."

"Good," said Marie. "I'm all for that. But don't you think that a Warbird who's drunk on her kiester is just about as dangerous as a super-villain?"

"I am not drunk on my kiester! I can handle the stuff."

"Is that why they were about to vote you out? Because you could handle the stuff?"

"They were hypocrites. Hawkeye and Thor drink. Iron Man had a drinking problem."

"Iron Man?" said Marie. "So that's why he came here that morning. My God, honey, why didn't you tell me back then you had a problem?"

"Didn't think I had one," said Carol. "Just blowing off tension's a defense mechanism, not a problem."

"It is if you blow it off in a problematic way," said Marie. "Don't kid yourself. And this Hawkeye and Thor, do they go out drunk into battle?"

Carol shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think so. Doesn't really matter."

"Yes, it does. With as much power as that Thor guy has, he could knock down the World Trade Center if he tied one on. Honey, you've admitted you lied about your powers fading out when you rejoined."

"I didn't lie about it, I just didn't tell them." Carol bristled.

"And that's your excuse? You withheld important information from them? What if you'd been up-front about it from the beginning? Would they have kicked you out then?"

"They might have," said Carol. "I don't know."

"You've got as much power as you did when you were Ms. Marvel, and they let you in then," said Marie. "Carol, when in the hell are you going to do some thinking for yourself? Why do I always have to be Mary Worth? You're over 30, you'll be 40 in a few years, but if you don't start getting your stuff together the way you used to have it, you probably won't make it." Marie shook her head. "Maybe you shouldn't have gotten any powers. Maybe you just can't handle them."

Carol stared back at her. "I can handle them. I'm going to show every damned one of them that I can be twice the hero they are. I'll hold down a regular job, too. I can do it. I saved the sun, I can sure do that much."

Marie said, "Could you have saved the sun when you were drunk?"

Without a word, Carol got up from the table and started walking away.

Marie called after her, "You've got some mail. One of the letters looks pretty important."

"Thanks, Mom," said Carol, over her shoulder. She went to the coffee table in the front room, where Mom usually put the mail, and saw a small stack of letters addressed to her. She shuffled through them and found the one Mom had probably been talking about.

The return address had a _Tech Support_ logo on it, the name of an aerospace trade magazine, and under that, the name of Tracy Burke, the editor. Tracy had been her successor at _Woman_ magazine, years ago.

She walked to her room, careful not to go near the kitchen where Marie was now taking care of the breakfast dishes, and flopped down on her bed below the Air Force recruiting poster.

A few seconds after reading the letter, Carol had punched up Tracy's work number on her phone. The secretary put her through. "Burke, can I help you?" said a familiar voice.

"Tracy, it's Carol," she said. "Do you really mean what you just wrote me?"

"Sure did, kid, or I wouldn't have written it," affirmed Tracy. "If you want to come up here, and you can stand the rain, there's a place for you. I haven't read all of that novel you sent me yet, but your articles look damned great."

"Will you help me get a place in Seattle?"

"Can I take that as a yes?"

"Sure can."

"Then my answer is: you bet."

"Awright!"

After a few more minutes, Carol hung up, trotted into the kitchen, and grabbed her dishwashing mother from behind. "Mom, believe it, you'll never believe it!" she shouted.

"Believe what? And don't crunch my poor old ribs, honey."

"Sorry. Mom, I just finished talking to Tracy Burke. She's got a writing job waiting for me in Seattle, on _Tech Support_ magazine."

Marie turned her head, giving Carol a sad smile. "Do you think you're really ready for it, dear? Remember, if you blow assignments down a bottle, they're not going to like it any more than the Avengers did."

"Mom, would you not rain on my parade for once? My drunken days are behind me. Just like the Avengers. I'm ready to rattle in Seattle. Let me get my plane reservations."

"Do something first for me, honey."

"What's that?"

"Take that bottle of booze out of your suitcase and pour it down the sink, with me watching. Or don't go."

Carol sighed. "Will you feel better about me if I do?"

"I'll always love you, Carol. But this is about you feeling better about you."

"Okay, okay." She marched back to her room and came back with the Chivas Regal. The seal was still unbroken, and she made sure Marie saw that. Marie dumped the water out of the plastic rinse tub in the sink and took the tub away.

Carol stepped up, cracked the seal, unstoppered the bottle, and upended it.

The expensive stuff gurgled and glooped its way out of the glass neck and spattered against the aluminum of the sink. Carol watched it go down the drain.

She watched very intently.

-C-

Two days later, Warbird was flying over the Seattle skyline.

She was smiling, even though she had told her father of her alky problem a day before. He had almost insisted that she stay there and start going to Alcoholics Anonymous. She had stood up to him again, said she was going to the King City, that her problems with the sauce were down the drain with the Chivas, and that was that.

It was fun to see the locals point up at her from street level and watch the window-washers wave at her. The norms did that everywhere. The universal super-hero salute. She waved back. Then she found a suitable alley to land in, powered down, and exited as Carol Danvers. It was close enough to a designated meeting spot for her to walk.

Tracy was sitting at said spot, on a bench underneath a tree, near Ivar's big clam restaurant. "Carol," she called, waving to draw the blonde's attention.

Carol called out Tracy's name, and stepped up to her. The gray-haired editor was dressed in gray coat, black blouse, and maroon skirt, and looked attractive despite her 50-plus years. A helluva lot better than when they both had worked in the New York pressure cooker. Carol extended her hand and Marie shook it.

"You're looking good, Trace," said Carol. "The magazine scene out here in aerospace country must agree with you."

"Well, it sure beats working for Jonah Jameson," said Tracy. "C'mon, kid, I'm starved. You like clams?"

"I'll learn."

-C-

After a first course, during which Carol learned to endure clams, if not like them, Tracy gave her the verdict. "Your samples are terrific. And as editor of _Tech Support_ magazine, I can promise you as many freelance writing assignments as you want. As for that other matter-"

"The book?" said Carol. "You don't have to spare my feelings, Tracy. If it's awful, just-"

"Don't sell yourself short, kid. What I was going to say was that, due to that other matter, I don't think you'll be writing for me long." Tracy grinned. Carol waited.

"Your novel's wonderful, Carol," Tracy continued, "and utterly publishable." She went on to praise the manuscript, the one Carol had written about the American agent who gets involved with the Kree. "You write about outer space like you've lived there, Carol. I know editors in New York who'll snap it up in a second, and who'd kill to have you under a three-book contract."

"You're serious. You're not just pulling my leg."

Tracy shook her head. "Nope. You could be the next Michael Crichton, if you can put this stuff out consistently. That's the truth, Carol."

Carol beamed. "Well, this calls for a celebration." She hailed a passing waiter. "I'll have another seven and seven. And my friend here'll have another of whatever she's..."

She glanced at Tracy, who had an almost terrified look on her face. Carol turned to the waiter. "Just a seven and seven for me," she said, and he left.

"I forgot, Tracy-you don't drink anymore," said Carol. "Does it bother you, me having a drink?"

Tracy's expression had faded to sadness. "It's not a problem. I'm nine years sober, and I'm staying that way. It's just, I never knew you to drink in the day before."

Carol forced a smile. "Don't worry about it, Trace. I'd been drinking a little much recently, but I'm rationing myself now. Got it all under control. I'll tell the waiter to skip the-"

She stopped.

She was facing the window, and had seen three people go by outside. One of them was in a wheelchair, wore shades, and, though bruised, looked quite familiar.

A familiar reaction went off within her like a meltdown.

"Excuse me, Tracy, but I just saw someone outside. I'll be back in a minute." She counted out money from her purse and nudged it underneath her plate.

"Carol, what is it?" said Tracy. "Are you all right?"

"I'm just peachy, don't worry," she said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Carol walked as quickly as possible out of the restaurant and was very thankful that there were few people on the sidewalk at this odd afternoon hour. Stepping into an alley again, she powered up enough to use flight ability, but did not alter her clothes to her Warbird attire. She sprang into the air, and came down on the sidewalk right in front of the guy in the wheelchair, the big bruiser behind him, and the freckle-faced redheaded woman beside the bruiser.

Carol stood there, hands on hips, feet spread apart to give her a solid stance, and forced the three of them to halt in front of her. She focused her angry glare on the man in the chair.

"Well, well, well," she said, with much acid. "Tony Stark."


	14. Chapter 14

**Ms. Marvel / Binary / Warbird:**

**A Prize For Three Empires**

Part 14

by DarkMark

"Carol, what a surprise," said Tony Stark, easily. "I'd been trying to call you the last few weeks, but you never responded. Did you know I've just-"

The woman in the black skirt and blazer and mauve blouse facing the man in the hi-tech wheelchair cut him off. "I know," she said. "I saw a big photo spread in the Post-Intelligencer on your new house." It could give Bill Gates's place a run for its money, but her mind wasn't on architecture at the moment.

"Did you follow me out here, Tony? Are you checking up on me? For the Avengers, or just because you don't think I'm capable of handling my own problems?"

The man and woman with Tony, whom she later learned were Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts, were confused, but they let their boss carry the ball for them. After all, Carol hadn't physically attacked Stark. At least, not yet.

But Tony showed genuine surprise, and Carol didn't think he was faking it. "What? No, Carol, that's not the case at all. The ground was broken for my house before the Avengers even got back together. I couldn't possibly have-"

"Good," said Carol, stooping down to get face-to-face with Tony. "Then just stay out of my way, Stark. It's a big town. We can avoid each other just fine."

"Carol," he said.

"Just stay out of my way!"

She powered up and lifted off the pavement in her street clothes. She transformed into her Warbird self within seconds, and was gone.

Happy and Pepper were, like their boss, looking up after her. "Geez," said Happy. "What was that all about?"

"Just an old friend, Happy," said Stark. "Nothing to worry about."

-C-

Carol had made it back to her apartment, called up Tracy Burke, and apologized for leaving her on the hook like that. She refused to explain more than I-saw-an-old-acquaintance-and-had-to-work-things-o ut-with-him. She promised to have an article in Tracy's e-mail box before 6 p.m. tomorrow, and, when Tracy asked her cautiously about the drinking thing, Carol said that had nothing to do with why she left. So Tracy had let Carol end the call.

Later on, while working on the piece, a bit on security at aircraft development plants, Carol had the TV on to a local station and her ears caught the words, "Iron Man."

She hoped like hell it wouldn't be coverage of a fight in progress. She made herself turn and look.

It was.

Some idiot in War Machine's old armor, an outfit designed by Stark himself and sporting twin Gatling guns on its shoulders, was duking it out with the armored Avenger. She could tell Tony really wasn't in any shape to be fighting the guy. He had been in a wheelchair hours earlier, recovering from lumps taken during a fight with the Espionage Elite and the Mandarin. From the live feed she saw, Iron Man was taking repulsor blasts and rounds from the twin guns on War Machine's shoulders. He was trying to give it back, but he wasn't doing so well.

Carol cursed. Why did they both have to be in Seattle? Why couldn't he have stayed in New York City with all the rest of the super-freaks? Why couldn't she get off this merry-go-round of heroes and villains?

Because there were more villains than heroes.

And because she couldn't let a friend get killed, while she could do something about it.

"Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy," she said as she powered up. Then she wrote a quick note to Tracey, with an attachment of the article as it stood so far. She admitted,

I may be a little later on this than I thought. But not too much later. Trust me.  
Carol D.

Then she opened the window, and Warbird flew into action.

-C-

She couldn't have come at a more opportune time. Tony was down on the ground, pavement shattered under him, when she got there, and War Machine was drawing a bead on him. She grinned wolfishly and yelled at him.

"Hi, there," she said.

War Machine turned his head to look at her. Good.

"I don't like Iron Man very much, not these days," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you kill him."

They engaged in battle. She dodged his shots, roared in, and smashed him as hard as she could with both fists in a bombing run. It evidently got to him, because he grabbed Iron Man as a hostage and threatened to kill him. Luckily, Tony came back to his senses, blasted free of War Machine with his repulsor rays, and gave Carol a chance to knock the creep right into the sky.

She smiled again. When all was said and done, punching out bad guys was a lot of fun.

The fight wasn't as great as it should have been. The two of them didn't coordinate their efforts well together, and War Machine was a tough foe to beat. At one point, Iron Man even cut out, telling her to hold the fort. She was almost convinced that he'd turned coward, because of his injuries. Then she was too bust getting knocked through building material by War Machine to notice.

She put up a hell of a fight, but War Machine had the drop on her just as Iron Man returned. He had a thing he called a Negator Pack. When it was attached to War Machine's chestplate, it was supposed to shut down the villain's systems.

But it didn't work, and War Machine knocked Iron Man across the sky.

Warbird swooped down and caught him. She could sense his injury. War Machine flew off, and she didn't even try to stop him.

It started raining shortly after that. Carol kept telling Tony to hang on, asking him questions, and figuring that when he groaned, that was a good enough answer.

She knew where Stark's place was, and knew that there was enough medical equipment there to sustain his life. Hopefully, they could get a doctor there, too. A doctor who would already know he was Iron Man.

There was. Her name was Jane Foster, and she had just finished patching up Tony Stark after his last brouhaha. Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts were also on hand. Carol put Iron Man on a guerney for them. Happy, who had worn the armor himself before, knew the procedure for safely getting it off him. He took the helmet off first.

Tony Stark looked beaten and grey and barely alive.

"Get the rest of it off him and get him in fast," barked Jane.

"Will do," said Happy.

Afterward, Warbird found herself alone with Pepper for a moment. "He'd better make it," breathed Carol.

"I thought you were so hacked off with him when you saw us on the street," said Pepper. "Guess that doesn't matter so much when something like this happens, does it?"

"No. It doesn't." Carol paused. "You've seen me without my mask."

Pepper nodded. "I don't give out secret identities."

"I want to give you something. Where's something to write on?"

Pepper steered her to a desk and a notepad. Carol snatched a pen nearby and scrawled a number on it. "Here," she said, tearing off the sheet and handing it to her. "Give this to Tony when he wakes up. You can read it, too. It's my personal phone number, plus my voice mail. If he needs me, that's where he can reach me."

The redhead smiled. "I'm glad you feel this way about him, now. I've been through ups and downs with him, hated him once, then hated Iron Man once, but those things didn't last. I guess he's just about the greatest guy I've ever known. Even though I love Happy more, of course."

Warbird just said, "Call me when you learn more about his condition." Then she left, streaking through the rainy sky when she got outside.

-C-

The next afternoon, Carol got a call from Pepper. "I think Tony could use a surprise visit from you," she said. "He's just gotten some really bad news."

Tensely, Carol said, "Like what? Is he, well-dying?"

Pepper said, "Not quite. Turns out the armor is retarding his body's ability to heal itself. He can't wear it now, not for a long time. He may never be able to be Iron Man again."

"Oh, no."

"Hank Pym, you know, Giant-Man?"

"I knew him as Yellowjacket," said Carol. "What about him?"

"Well, Hank did the review of his case and he flat out told him that he had to give up being Iron Man. The boss is trying to bear up, but I can tell when he's internalizing a lot of hurt. We're helping him, but there's some things only super-heroes can talk about to each other, I guess."

"When and where do you want me to meet him?"

"He'll be at the house tonight. Probably down by the lake. We'll try and leave you two alone together when you come. You are coming, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it, Pepper," said Carol. "Wouldn't miss it for a Kree invasion."

-C-

So, while Tony Stark sat in his hovering wheelchair looking out over the lake on his property that night, with a face festooned with bruises and Band-Aids, Warbird swooped down from the sky again, and landed before him. She noted that, while he still looked like hell, he looked a bit less like it than he had yesterday when she left him. "Hi, Tony," she said.

He was pleased to see her, even though he didn't smile.

After she explained about entrusting her secret identity to Pepper, Tony admitted his condition: "I can't be trusted to stay away from the armor, it seems. They're packing me off to the Basel Stress Clinic for recuperation. A top-notch clinic, recommended by half the A.M.A. I'll stay there until I'm well. No consulting, no Avenging, no work, no nothing. I leave tomorrow."

Tony stared off across the moonlit lake. Warbird powered down to her Carol identity and stood before him in blazer, blouse, and slacks. Then she stepped before him, knelt down on one knee to be on his level, and, after considering things, began to speak again.

"Tony," she said. "About my drinking. About what happened. I tried to hate you for what you did. I wanted to. But I couldn't. And not just because you were doing the right thing."

He looked at her, and, almost imperceptibly, nodded.

"It's like-like today," Carol continued. "Seeing you fighting, beyond your limits, but never quitting. It's hard to label you petty or vindictive after that. I know you were trying to help me. And I apologize for lashing out. And what's more, I know you can beat this. You're strong enough to do anything."

He smirked. "A regular Iron Man, that's me. But how are you doing?"

She rose up, straightened her shoulders. "Managing. I have a problem, I know that. But I can lick it. I'm pretty strong, too. And hey, when you're back in town, I'll buy you dinner. By then, I'll have a major headstart on you in finding all the best restaurants."

She powered up, and her Warbird costume replaced the Carol clothing. Then she bent down, hands on knees, and pecked him on the cheek. "Be good, y'hear?"

"I will, Carol," he said. "And-thanks. Thanks for everything."

"Don't mention it," said Carol. "Hey, the world can't go forever without an Iron Man."

Then she lifted off, her feet leaving the earth, and silently flew into the night sky again. She looked back and waved once.

She was not so far off that she couldn't see him tiredly smiling.

-C-

The next week, after filing several articles with Tech Support, Carol's agent called and told her that a New York publisher wanted the Kree / spy book. That is, if she'd hop a plane and do some face-to-face with them about promotion and such. She called up Tracey and crowed about the good news, then told her mom and dad, and said she'd swing by if she could afterward. Finally, she called the airlines, made a reservation, and started packing a grip.

The meeting went well and schedules for a tour were drawn up, and a fat advance was made out. Visions of royalties danced in her head. Tom Clancy, here I come, she thought. She shook hands with the company's v.p. and the other guys in the office where the meeting took place and the secretary when she left and even the janitor on her way out, for good measure.

It was 4 p.m. and she couldn't wait to tell someone in town about her good fortune. The problem was, who?

She paused at a phone kiosk, her phone credit card slick in her hand. The Avengers? No. There was still too much pain there, right now.

Nick Fury? She doubted the head of SHIELD could make time out for a night on the town.

By process of elimination, that left the X-Men. So she dialed up their private number. Logan answered the phone. "Xavier's, Logan speakin'."

"Hello, Johnny Canuck!"

"Carol! Whatcha been doin' with yourself, Modesty Blaise? Heard you moved. Where you callin' from?"

"I'm in town, Logan. Takin' care of business. Big, big business, but civilian type. Wanna see me tonight?"

Logan said, "Sure. But tonight's my pool-playin' night. You still as good as you were?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Carol said. "I was thinkin' maybe of dinner and such, but if you want to do pool, that's okay."

"Doin' some TCB myself through dinnertime, Carol, sorry," said Logan. "What say you meet me down at Hardcase's? About 7 or so? That's where I do my playin'."

"Um," she said. "All right, okay. Tell me where it's at."

He told her. It was a tough neighborhood, from the location. But, what the hell, she was still Warbird. And she knew how to take care of herself from way before she became a super-heroine.

"I'll be there," she said. She hung up.

Carol hesitated. Sure, she'd done her share of poolrooms when she was with the USAF. She'd had her fill of beer steins and cigarette smoke and jerks who thought they could hustle a woman on the pool table or off it.

But Logan was a friend. A friend from way back. A friend who had saved her life more than once. An old lover, too.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of pool, I shall not be afraid," she murmured, and stepped away from the kiosk.

She wondered why those words sounded so stupid to her, when she said them.

-C-

So there she was in Hardcase's, dressed in a short skirt, a T-shirt that left her abs bare, and a jacket which she discarded. Logan was late. She paid for a table, racked the balls, and played a couple of games by herself. When a guy came by with a look of grab-ass in his eyes, she turned and told him not to even think about it. Something in her mien caused him to hang back, then to go elsewhere.

Carol didn't have to do that too many times that night. But Logan was still absent. She wondered how long he'd be. Finally, she went to the manager and asked to use the phone and called him. He said that he'd be there, but it'd take him a while to get through traffic. She understood. On a visit to an inner-city poolroom, you didn't normally take a hovercraft.

She sighed. There was nothing much to do except wait. And play another solo game. And eat, if she thought she could stomach what this place called food, probably just nachos and hot dogs.

There were three guys at the bar, and each had a stein of beer in his hand. She looked at them a long, long moment.

It was awfully hard for even a place like this to screw up beer.

A voice inside her told her to get out, don't even go there, don't even think about it, don't justify what the Avengers thought of her, don't let Mom and Daddy down.

Another voice said that it was just beer, that she could keep it within her limit, that she knew how to drink like a lady, she wasn't a kid anymore, for cripes' sake, and beer would be the only thing that could make this place bearable while she was waiting for Logan the Late.

She tipped the scales. Still holding the cue, Carol stepped hesitantly in the direction of the bar. The steps got a little bit easier as she kept taking them. The men turned in her direction, sizing up her lovely, half-revealed body.

At least the bartender had a little courtesy. "Yes, miss? What'll it be?"

She swallowed, very hard.

The bartender said, "Miss? What can I get you?"

Carol opened her mouth. "A beer. Gimme a beer, please."

By the time Logan finally got there, she was working on her fifth.

And it felt damned good.

She threw her arms around him, kissed him, and was somewhat surprised that he hung back, a little. Hell, didn't he remember they'd done this before? "Missed you," she said.

"Missed you, too," said Logan. "Sorry I kept you so long. What's the good news?"

"I'm gonna be a biiiiig-name writer, Logan," Carol said, trying not to slosh her beer against his back. "Gonna be a face on Good Morning, America, an' Today, an' all that crap. Ain't that marvy?"

"That's great, darlin'," he said. "Tell me all about it while I'm slaughterin' you in our first game."

"Grab two beers first," she said. "One for you, one for me. You gotta catch up."

"You haven't finished the one you've got yet," he said.

Carol disengaged from him, lifted the stein to her mouth, and chugged the remainder. She held out the empty glass to him.

He gave her a quizzical look and took it.

After the first game and two more beers, Logan said, "Uh, you sure you don't want to slow down a bit, Carol? All kiddin' aside, hon, I just beat you pretty bad."

"Forget about it," she said. "This isn't the first time I quit the Avengers." He was glad she was speaking low enough for the conversation to be audible to only the two of them. "Y'know?", she continued. "You wanna know why? You wanna know what the big deal was with the Avengers? I made a few lousy mistakes."

Wolverine nursed his brew and waited.

"They knew I had turned into Binary and was hangin' out with the Starjammers for a time. I had powers-y'know-big time. But when I found out I'd lost the powers I had as Binary, I kept it a secret from the rest of the team. And I'll admit it. That was wrong. But it didn't warrant the kind of treatment I got."

Logan said, "Maybe not. But you betrayed their trust, darlin'. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, especially during the time I've spent with the X-Men, it's that you can't ever do that."

She didn't seem to be listening. All she was interested in doing was finishing the rest of her beer. The Canadian mutant decided, silently, that he'd better make sure she didn't have another one. One more game, and then he'd take her home. Or maybe he should take her back to Xavier's, to spend the night where he could keep an eye on her.

But on top of that, he knew that the Avengers business was hurting her badly. And he had a feeling she hadn't told him all the truth about her dismissal.

That hurt him, too.

About that time the TV hung from the pole near the ceiling did a news bulletin. That always seemed to happen when you were a superhero, and you had a night off.

This time, it was about a female mutant named Powerhouse, who was a renegade and who was tearing up stuff outside the UN building. Wolverine judged he had to help subdue her. Public sentiment was strong enough against mutants as it was, and Xavier was right when he said good mutants always had to show up to fight the bad ones, as a demonstration of their own trustworthiness.

He wanted to call Carol a cab. Even though she was wobbly as a Congressman's morals, she wouldn't hear of it. She insisted on turning into Warbird and flying him into battle.

Bad mistake.

Warbird dropped Logan off and let him strike Powerhouse a few times, then started unleashing energy blasts at their foe. Or at least, where she thought their foe was. The blasts went wide of the target every time, and endangered civilians. Instead of one problem to deal with, Wolverine had two.

Powerhouse got within range of Carol when she swooped down and knocked her flat.

Wolverine grudgingly admitted that, under the circumstances, that wasn't such a bad deal.

He finally got inside Powerhouse's guard, landed a roundhouse left, and put the bimbo out for the count. An ambulance came up. Warbird was recovering from the short knockout she'd suffered. She even acted a little more sober. Hell, a lot more sober.

Logan stooped to help another guy who looked like a casualty. He touched him.

Second bad mistake.

The guy had been possessed by a Zennan, a female spirit-entity from outer space, a criminal who had just escaped a prison world.

Now the Zennan took over Wolverine's body, and wanted to have some fun.

Warbird was approaching him. "Wolverine, what's going on? Where's Powerhouse? Did we win? Uh, Wolvie? Is everything all right?"

He gave her a terrible smile.

Then he lashed out with both sets of claws and ripped a hole across her belly.


End file.
